But here's something strange: Under Metabolic Health it showed a moderate association with Hashimoto’s disease. That wasn’t something that was on my radar at all. I checked my bloodwork from my most recent physical, and my thyroid numbers looked normal, but I had a doctor’s appointment the next week anyway, so we ran some additional bloodwork that looked specifically at the thyroid. Sure enough, my thyroglobulin antibodies were almost double what they should be. I quickly made an appointment with an endocrinologist who said I shouldn’t worry about it much for now, but it’s something to keep an eye on going forward. I’m so glad that I now know to stay up to date on it, and I wouldn’t have known at all if I hadn’t taken this test. Hopefully it will end up being nothing, but early detection could go a long way. On the other side, it also found a moderate association for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes large distinct patches of hair to fall out. And that’s very weird, because I demonstrably do not have that. So, it’s important to note that while some of elements of your microbiome might be associated with a condition, it’s by no means definitive, nor does it mean there’s causation there, necessarily. It was also interesting to see what it didn’t find. For instance, on my intake I put that bloating was something I’d been experiencing, but my test results showed no associations with bloating. When I asked Jona’s team about it later, they noted that obviously that doesn’t mean that the issue isn’t happening, but they don’t have evidence for a link to the microbiome specifically. Of all the things that would be directly linked to the microbiome, you’d think bloating would be right up at the top, but evidently not in my case. I was actually a bit disappointed to find that, because I was hoping it would reveal that long elusive fix. Oh well. What to Do Courtesy of Jona For each of the conditions listed, it would give me my top recommendations. For example, my top three for Hashimoto’s was to increase omega-3 fatty acids and magnesium (both based on established research) and to up my step count (limited research). You can also see the specific organisms you have that are associated with it and click References to see the associated studies. Even with this distillation, it’s still a lot of information to sort through, and it’s not always immediately clear how the linked studies pertain to your situation (at least for the layperson).