What This At-Home Test Says About Your Gut Microbiome

Red flags for disease take just days to show up with a simple food test, even if you don’t have symptoms.

Gut motility is a marker not just of a host of diseases, but also to what might be going on in your gut microbiome.

The windfall of microbiome knowledge is revealing connections between gut health and a growing list of diseases.

Rapidly evolving technology is letting us take a closer look at the bacteria and others microbes that live in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Uncovering patterns, or “microbial signatures,” that are uniquely associated with various diseases such as autism, Parkinson’s disease, depression, and endometriosis opens up new avenues of treatment and prevention.

But it turns out you can gather some pretty critical information at home as well—and it appears to be quicker at identifying red flags for some diseases. Simple tests using food can actually offer an early indicator of a shift in gut ecology. And research affirms the reliability of such tests.

It’s done by tracking how long it takes food to move through the GI tract, measuring gut motility—the transit time between eating food and getting it all the way through the GI tract to excretion.

Transit time has been found to be a better marker of gut microbiome function than examining stool consistency and frequency, according to the results of a 2021 study in Gut,  Blue Poo: Impact of Gut Transit Time on the Gut Microbiome Using a Novel Marker. Long transit time is commonly associated with disease, and most people have no idea how long food is staying in their GI tract, integrative physician Dr. Akil Palanisamy told The Epoch Times.

“People often think [gut motility] is equivalent to constipation. They might think that if they don’t have constipation, they have normal transit time,” he said. “But they don’t always correlate, and that’s why the test is useful.”

The Gut’s Role in Disease

This key measurement is so important, according to the authors of a 2022 article in Gut, it ought to be included in future gut microbiome-related studies to better understand the links between diet, disease, and the microbiome.

“Such insights may be key for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of several diseases in the gut and beyond throughout the lifespan,” the study said. “Gut transit time varies markedly between and within individuals and has been associated with gut microbial diversity, composition, and metabolism.”

Conditions of the gut that exhibit both transit issues and microbiome involvement include irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), small bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) including Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. Colon cancer is also associated with slow transit time, and both IBD and constipation are risk factors for colon cancer.

But altered bowel habits, including constipation, are also associated with a number of neurological and metabolic diseases beyond the gut, the study explained. This includes Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and obesity. There’s even evidence it could be a risk factor for chronic kidney disease and ischaemic heart disease.

Gut Motility Explained

Ideally you want your food to move through the digestive process slow enough for your body to absorb nutrients but fast enough that it’s not over fermenting.

Slow motility can lead to gas and bloating, as well as absorption of some of the toxic byproducts from bateria’s fermentation process, according to Dr. Palanisamy in his book “The T.I.G.E.R. Protocol: An Integrative 5-Step Program to Treat and Heal Your Autoimmunity.”

Slow transit time is a vicious cycle, as it can be caused by an imbalance of gut bacteria, and it worsens that dysbiosis. Metabolically, it’s associated with an increase in visceral fat and blood sugar spikes—both risk factors for cardiometabolic disease. The 2021 Gut study pointed out that Ruthenibacterium lactatiformans, which was higher in those with longer gut transit times, is associated with poorer cardiometabolic health.

Measuring motility by having participants ingest blue dye found at ordinary grocery stores, the 2021 “Blue Poo” study also examined the gut microbiome profiles of 863 healthy individuals, as well as their cardiometabolic health, and diet. Findings validated an earlier large-scale study that gut transit time is the top covariate contributing to microbiome composition among 69 assessed.

The median gut transit time for the whole study population was 28.7 hours, which falls within what’s considered “normal.” Anything under 14 hours was considered fast, while 14-58 hours was deemed normal and more than 59 hours was classified as slow transit time. Gut transit time is strongly correlated to stool consistency and frequency, as well as alpha diversity and microbiome composition.

Another at-home test offering clues for motility is the Bristol stool chart—a diagnostic tool of crude illustrations developed in the late 1970s. With fecal images of seven types ranging from watery to hard lumps, the test has been criticized for too many options that don’t have a clinical meaning.

In fact, one 2015 study in which participants were gastrointestinal physicians and other healthcare professionals found that while they could mostly identify the correct category, they weren’t in agreement about whether findings indicated constipation, normal bowel function, or diarrhea.

The Bristol scale was one of the tools used to record consistency and frequency of bowel movements in the “Blue Poo” study. Among its findings were that blue dye performed better than the Bristol method as an informative marketer of gut microbiome function.

Defining Ideal Motility

There are still some unknowns, including whether so-called “normal” transit times reported in many studies are actually ideal. There is no standard like there is with other health markers like blood pressure, resting heart rate, and cholesterol.

The spectrum is wide, and transit time—much like blood pressure—varies even in the same person. Dr. Palanisamy considers 24 hours the upper limit of normal. However, according to Mount Sinai, the average transit time is 30 to 40 hours, with up to 72 hours still considered normal.

This is problematic, according to a review published last month in the Journal of Clinical Medicine that examined 22 studies measuring gut motility. It found that GI transit times in the included studies ranged between 0.4 and 15.3 hours for gastric (stomach) emptying, 3.3 to 7 hours for small intestine transit time, and 15.9 to 28.9 hours for colon transit time. Total time varied from 23 to 37.4 hours.

The authors said while it provides a good reference, it also “highlights the need to standardize protocols to differentiate between normal and pathological function.”

How to Take the Test

Testing transit time is relatively simple and straightforward. The trick is finding a way to know which meal results in which bowel movement. Dr. Palanisamy advises patients to eat two tablespoons of chia seeds or white sesame seeds, trying not to chew them too well. It might also help to eat them away from other foods when you eat them. A cup of whole corn is also an option.

Food dye is a more popular option. Whichever food or dye you choose, be sure to remove it from your regular diet for a week prior to the test.

In the “Blue Poo” study, participants ate two blue muffins on an empty stomach and recorded how long until they saw blue excrement. If you don’t want to use blue dye, you could also use beets—either raw or roasted but not pickled.

Simply record the time you eat and wait until the first sign that you see it in your stool. Record the number of hours. Anything under six hours is concerning, Dr. Palanisamy said, and likely to be someone dealing with diarrhea and poor nutrient absorption. More common are people who suffer from slower motility.

Improving Motility

There are specific factors that affect transit time including a combination of issues such as lifestyle, genetics, anatomy, physiology, health status, medication and drug use, diet, and water consumption, according to the 2022 article in Gut. Stress can also slow digestion.

Consuming fresh or roasted beets can help identify stool transit time for understanding your gut motility.

Because dehydration is a common cause, drinking more water is a good place to start, said Dr. Palanisamy. He also recommends increasing both fiber and probiotics but doing it slowly. One tablespoon of fermented food—such as sauerkraut, kimchi, or kefir—can be taken before each meal.

“It does take at least between two to four to work because these are not drugs we are prescribing,” he said.

Retesting at four weeks is recommended, according to Dr. Palanisamy. But because of the other potential causes of slow motility, further tests may be warranted to rule out physiological and anatomical problems, such as complications in the nervous system, faulty valves (sphincters), and other structural issues.

Changing Habits Helps

In some cases, though, the root issue is how someone relates to food. For instance, bad eating habits can be addressed to help improve digestion, naturopath Nicole Peasnell with Kirsten Greene SIBO Clinic told The Epoch Times.

“We will do some supplementation early on because they just want to feel better,” she said. “But what I say to people is you can’t out-supplement bad habits. We can throw all the supplements we want at it, but if those habits aren’t in place regularly, then they’re not going to see the long-term results.”

Some key habits, according to Ms. Peasnell, are:

• Deep breathing: Slow relaxed breathing can turn on the parasympathetic nervous system before a meal and cue the body that it’s time for digestion.
• Sitting to eat: This is another way to nudge the nervous system.
• Chewing: Chew food with more bites and more slowly than you feel is necessary.
• Take time with meals: Don’t be rushed when it’s time to eat or eat in your car if it can be avoided.
• Meal spacing: Devote time to each meal with no snacking in between to maximize the mechanics of digestion.

For those who have ruled out mechanical issues with medical testing, answers may be found in the microbiome and its relationship to diet and lifestyle. Additional testing that looks at what microbes are in stool is sometimes offered by functional providers.

“It’s complicated to do on your own. It can get really overwhelming,” Ms. Peasnell said. “It doesn’t hurt to understand your body, but we don’t want people to necessarily hyperfocus on the gut.”