Do you really need a £300 gut microbiome test?
When Paris Hilton revealed that a gut microbiome test advised her to avoid eating broccoli, it went viral.
Broccoli, the poster child for healthy eating, off-limits?
It highlights the growing obsession with gut health and the booming industry of gut microbiome testing. Promising to unlock the secrets of your gut and offering personalised advice, these tests are tempting – but are they actually worth the hype, or just an expensive science experiment?
As someone who’s a dietitian and microbiome scientist at King’s College London, let me break down the truth behind gut microbiome testing....
What is the gut microbiome?
Your gut microbiome is like a thriving city of 100 trillion microscopic residents, invisible to the naked eye, living in your gut.
These tiny inhabitants – known as microbes – include bacteria, fungi, viruses, and more. They do far more than just help digest your food; they strengthen your immune system and even influence your mood and energy levels.
No gut microbiome is the same – making yours truly one of a kind, shaped by your diet, lifestyle, and even the way you were born.
A healthy gut microbiome is often described as diverse – a variety of microbes working together – but the specific microbes you have in your gut can differ dramatically from person to person, and this makes it hard to say if one person’s microbiome is better than another’s.
How can you test your gut microbiome?
If you’ve ever wondered what’s living in your gut, gut microbiome tests promise to spill the secrets. These tests are pretty simple – you send off a stool sample (a scoop of poo in a pot) to a lab, and they analyse it to see which microbes are in your gut and how many.
Results come with a breakdown of your microbial lineup and, in some cases, ‘health scores’ for your microbiome, but the science behind these are often unclear, and haven't been independently validated.
Many companies also throw in diet and lifestyle tips, claiming they’re tailored to your unique microbiome. It all sounds cutting-edge and super personalised, but let’s not get too carried away. These tests can cost anywhere from £100 to £300+, so the big question is, are they worth it?
Are gut microbiome tests legit?
Here’s what gut microbiome tests can do – they can tell you which microbes are in your gut, but that’s about it.
The science is still catching up – right now, we don’t fully understand what an ‘ideal’ microbiome looks like for each individual. What’s healthy for one person might not work for another. It’s also not so much about which microbes you have but what they do – the molecules they produce and how they interact with your body.
Whether a microbe is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ often depends on the situation. For many, microbes might be helpful in one instance but have the potential to be problematic in another, making it tricky to label them as definitively healthy or unhealthy.
While it’s fascinating to learn about your gut’s microscopic residents, this information doesn’t automatically translate into useful advice you couldn’t get for free elsewhere, without a test.
We don’t yet know enough about how specific foods impact specific microbes. There’s no evidence yet to suggest that certain foods can reliably increase specific bacteria in your gut in a way that would justify tailoring your diet based on a test.
While dietary changes are a powerful influence on your gut microbiome, the advice is general guidelines that apply to everyone, like eating more fibre-rich foods like whole grains, veggies, fruit, beans, nuts and seeds – you don’t need a test to know that.
And let’s be super clear – no gut microbiome test should ever tell you to avoid healthy plant foods like broccoli.
Let’s also not forget that your gut microbiome is constantly evolving – it’s a living ecosystem continuously shifting and changing. What you eat, your stress levels, and even how much you sleep can affect your make-up daily. So, a test only provides a snapshot of one moment in time – not the full picture of your gut health.
Are these tests helpful? What can we learn from them?
Gut microbiome tests are, at best, a fun insight into what’s happening in your gut.
They’re like reading the credits at the end of a movie – interesting, but not super useful when it comes to figuring out how to improve your health.
Many tests will tell you things like, ‘you need these fibre-rich veggies’ or ‘try this fermented food’ but, again, you don’t need a test to tell you that. And even if a test shows low levels of a certain ‘good’ bacteria, there’s no guarantee that trying to boost it through specific foods or supplements will make a noticeable difference to your health anyway.
Skip the test and get better results for your health and your microbes by spending that money on fibre-rich foods instead – like veggies, beans, fruit, whole grains, nuts and seeds. They feed your gut microbes and help them thrive.
The bottom line
Gut microbiome tests may sound exciting, but they’re more of a novelty than a necessity. Sure, they can tell you what microbes are in your gut, but they don’t offer the kind of tailored, actionable advice that justifies their hefty price tag - the science just isn’t there yet. Instead, focus on what we already know works - eat a variety of fibre-packed foods, get regular exercise, sleep well, and manage your stress. It’s cheaper, proven to improve your health, and - added bonus - no poo-scooping required.
Dr Leeming's book, Genius Gut: The Life-Changing Science Of Eating For Your Second Brain (£18.99, Penguin), is out now.
Genius Gut: The Life-Changing Science of Eating for Your Second Brain (10 New Gut-Brain Hacks to Revolutionise Your Energy, Mood, and Brainpower)
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