This is part 2B of Comparing Microbiomes from Three Different Providers – Part 1. I decided to do each lab separately and then do an overview at the end. See also

• Ombre Suggestions Analysis – Failing Grade – 2A
• Thorne Suggestions Analysis – INCOMPLETE / FAILED – 2C
• Microbiome Prescription Uber-Consensus Analysis – Excellent – 2D
• Comparing standalone suggestions – 2E, a reader wanted to know how similar Microbiome Prescription suggestions were using different data

Process

It is very simple, look at their suggestions, look at any references they provided. Then look at Microbiome Prescription evidence trail for the same substances. My usual “Just the facts, ma’am” approach. This data was retrieved on 24 Aug 2023.

First item, the suggestions are far wider and deeper than Ombre. With Rosemary and Rosemary extract being separate!

Clicking one the green bar describes the why with links to research.

Unfortunately the research suggestions appears to be second generation. For example, when I clicked on Bifidobacterium, I see that Chickpeas are transformed to Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) which is reasonably correct with a risk of over simplification.

“The galacto-oligosaccharides (GOSs) naturally occur in legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, and beans.”[2016]

Chickpeas, lentils and beans contain other substances. A First generation reference would explicitly cite chickpeas. A second generation would cite a component that is significant in chickpeas(with fingers crossed that other components will not have an adverse effect).

This same process is done for Pre-biotics & Ingredients, Probiotics and LifeStyle

Items to avoid are shown in red (sometimes there are none). The “orange” color appears to be me to be more a yellow (to my eyes).

Supplements – Ugh

My preference is to name the explicit supplements to take (and to avoid) and have the user find a product somewhere. Biomesight provides the product name (which can be ordered thru them) and below the product list the whys. From the time it takes this page to render, I surmise they are computing them upon request

Spot checking the very first item, we see the ingrediants:

• Galactooligosaccharides (Bimuno®)
• Organic gold and green kiwifruit powder (Livaux® and ACTAZIN®)
• Organic Xylooligosaccharides (PreticX®)

How do suggestions compare?

Microbiome Prescription tries to use first generation citations, BiomeSight appears to often use second generation citations [Ombre appears to use halogenic citations]. The ones that I checked are good as second generation citations.

Below are the take suggestions from Biomesight and what Microbiome Prescription consensus suggests. I skipped foods to minimize second generation citation issues.

Substance	MP Take	MP Avoid
resveratrol	4	0
Galactooligosaccharides	4	0
pectin	1	3
xylooligosaccharides	0	3
quercetin	4	0
ShenLing BaiZhu San	1	3
acacia fiber	–	–
Arabinogalactan	0	4
lactose (not in lactose intolerant)	3	0
milk oligosaccharides	3	1
raffinose	3	0
stachyose	3	1
chitooligosaccharides	4	0
Mannose oligosaccharides	4	0
triphala	2	2
licorice	4	0
codonopsis	3	0
cellulose	0	4
cinnamon	3	0
ginger	2	2
oregano	0	4
turmeric	4	0
taurine	0	1
calanus oil	–	–
nicotinamide mononucleotide	4	0
Omega-3	1	3
Yeast beta-glucan	0	4
Bacillus subtilis	1	3
Bifidobacterium longum BB536	0	3
Methylobacterium longum	–	–
Bacillus coagulans	1	3
Lactobacillus rhamnosus HN001	0	4
Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG	0	4
Lactobacillus rhamnosus CNCM I-3690	–	–

Remember that the suggestions are based on the bacteria selected to be modified. Different selections produces different results.

The first one with major disagreement was Arabinogalactan. I extracted the citations that I used with the bacteria impacted and attach it below.

My Impression are:

• For Supplements etc, we have 64% with reasonable agreement and 56% with strong agreement.
• For Probiotics, we have zero agreement. 🙁
• Items to AVOID are there — but the number is sparse, less than ideal.
  • The use of colors only is a poor UI choice (IMHO) because many people are color blind (8% of all males)
  • There is no words indicating this should be an avoid.

Bottom Line

Biomesight gives reasonable suggestions. The differences could be ascribed to the selection of bacteria needing modification. Microbiome Prescript default is to use 4 different algorithms to select bacteria and then aggregate into a consensus. I suspect Biomesight uses a single algorithm.

The absence of items to avoid is a significant omission IMHO.

I am a little concern for probiotic suggestions. This suggests two obvious possibilities: data entry issues or not sufficient coverage of available literature.

I would give their suggestions with supporting evidence a good rating. I suspect with enough time and manpower that they could raise it to excellent.

The videos below shows how you can see the evidence for the suggestions on Microbiome Prescription.