While the location of SIBO and the results of a stool test are a good physical distance apart, as part of an ongoing series of posts on special studies, I ran SIBO thru this morning — really expecting to find nothing, or perhaps a few overgrowths. To my surprise, the results was significant undergrowth with high statistical significance!
A formal post on the results is in the queue, but I thought that I should make the results available for those who wish to commit SIBO heresy!
SIBO reaches our threshold for inclusion as defined in A new specialized selection of suggestions links. A summary table of various studies has been added there which shows the statistical association is actually pretty strong.
Of course, you are saying “but this is down stream how can it impact upstream?!!?” To me, it is like saying, “I was waiting in a queue and everyone is healthy except the first person in the queue who had COVID, how could I get it?” Bacteria spread, including upstream.
I should point out that these bacteria may not be the cause, rather they may be ‘the canaries in the coal mine’ of the microbiome. A few items of special interest are:
| Bacteria | Reference Mean | Study |
| Shuttleworthia (genus) | 273 | 33 |
| Prevotella stercorea (species) | 6378 | 31 |
| Coprococcus eutactus (species) | 7987 | 1463 |
| Streptococcaceae (family) | 3567 | 1473 |
| Veillonellaceae (family) | 17295 | 10944 |
| Tissierellales (order) | 4162 | 1457 |
| Peptoniphilaceae (family) | 4158 | 1456 |
In terms of enzymes, the four items that were most significant were all low levels of:
- propanoate:CoA ligase (AMP-forming) (6.2.1.17)
- catechol:oxygen 2,3-oxidoreductase (ring-opening) (1.13.11.2)
- (2S,3R)-3-hydroxybutane-1,2,3-tricarboxylate pyruvate-lyase (succinate-forming) (4.1.3.30)
- propanoyl-CoA:oxaloacetate C-propanoyltransferase (thioester-hydrolysing, 1-carboxyethyl-forming) (2.3.3.5)
Bottom Line
SIBO by definition is OVERGROWTH, the stool samples and statistics says it is an UNDERGROWTH condition. Undergrowth means that substances do not get processed fully….
The sample size is low, more people with SIBO should transfer their data to Biomesight, then back to Microbiome Prescription, and then annotate it with SIBO. See Video on Transferring Data from Ombre/Thryve to Biomesight and then to Microbiome Prescription. I will wait until the sample size is larger before doing a formal post.
In the mean while, people with SIBO can try the new algorithm on the changing microbiome page. Feel free to add comments here on experience after trying suggestions for a month.
REMEMBER: The usual test is finding various compounds on the breath. Are the compounds from producing too much(overgrowth) or the compounds are not being consumed enough (undergrowth). Both scenarios produce a positive result. It feels like someone jumped to a conclusion and this arbitrary decision stuck in the name.
It would be better to say that SIBO is associated with the absence of certain bacteria. Those bacteria might produce protective metabolites, or they might just be a marker of some other condition.