Gut Testing

Gut Testing covers the consumer kits that promise to tell you what is happening in your microbiome — and the considerably narrower question of what they can actually tell you. The overview guide compares Viome, Tiny Health, and Biomesight and flags the kits worth skipping, and the in-depth review takes Viome's Gut Intelligence test apart on its own terms. A separate guide covers at-home FIT kits for colon cancer screening, the one stool test here that is part of mainstream medical guidelines.

The useful framing is that these products do not measure the same thing, so there is no single winner. Viome, Tiny Health, and Biomesight all sequence a stool sample, but with different methods (RNA, shotgun DNA, and 16S) at different prices. Independent testing also shows that different labs can return different results from the same sample. Which is worth the money depends entirely on what you are trying to learn.

What none of them are is diagnostic. No consumer microbiome kit here is FDA-cleared to diagnose IBS, SIBO, celiac disease, or a food allergy, and persistent or red-flag symptoms belong in front of a clinician before they belong in a testing kit. Start with the comparison guide to work out whether testing answers your question at all, then read the Viome review if a full microbiome test is the direction you are heading. If it isn't, the Conditions guides are the cheaper starting point.