This is a case, “[There’s] a 60-year-old with chronic urticaria, dermatographia, receiving periodic steroids, [with] acute severe itching and scratching on [their] legs and arms. [They] had Viome testing, [which was] normal for the most part. How does this test compare with [the] Doctor’s Data test?”

It’s really quite different. Biome is a whole genome sequencing task. It’s looking at the entire microbiome. I think it can be really helpful but I think a lot of the recommendations that are made by Viome based on the test results are not reliable at this point. Let’s put it this way: they’re a stretch beyond what our current evidence is suggesting, I think. The test methodology itself is good. But the interpretation and recommendations, I think, are a bit of a stretch in those cases.

Doctor’s Data is more looking for functional issues that we can treat—so parasite, fungal overgrowth, other gut pathogens, and things like that, so I think it’s a little bit more of an actionable task for Functional Medicine practitioners, at this point.