Mayo Clinic is collaborating on a study with Viome, a company transforming health through personalized nutrition based on individual biology to better understand the role of nutrition in disease and to explore the potential of Viome’s AI-driven personalized diets in helping manage sleep disorders such as sleep apnea and obesity.
Understanding Microbiome
A person’s microbiome is the entire collection of microbes living in and on the body. The microbiome forms a living layer over your skin and parts of the inside of your body, including the lungs and the digestive tract, from the mouth all the way down to the colon. When the microbes in your gut are out of balance, your body can’t absorb nutrients the way it should. The result of this is inflammation, the root of almost every chronic disease.
How Nutrition Affects Chronic Disease
The study will focus on measures of obesity (including body fat %), metabolism (HbA1c), and sleep. The teams will leverage Mayo Clinic’s medical expertise and Viome’s proprietary microbiome analysis platform. Together, they will enable a better understanding of how nutrition affects chronic diseases and explore the effectiveness of personalized nutrition as a strategy to help in treatment, and possibly even prevention, of these diseases.
The metatranscriptomic sequencing technology was developed in the Los Alamos National Laboratory for national security. Viome is the only test on the market with the power to see every strain, the activity of these organisms, and whether they are producing nutrients or toxins. It took 15 years to sequence the human genome. The company is now sequencing and analyzing your gut microbiome – which includes identifying trillions of active microbes, and their pathways, and functions – in just a few weeks.
Importance of Study
By exploring the role of nutrition in chronic diseases, the collaboration will open up the possibility of developing personalized strategies and interventions to help in their management. Mayo Clinic and Dr. Somers have a financial interest in the technology referenced in this news release. Mayo Clinic will use any revenue it receives to support its not-for-profit mission in patient care, education, and research.
Why It Matters
“Everything we do at Viome is in an effort to create a world where illness is optional. This partnership is no exception,” states Naveen Jain, CEO, and founder of Viome. “Through this collaboration with Mayo Clinic, an iconic organization committed to providing the best patient care, we will be able to amplify the critical importance of personalized nutrition and its direct impact on people suffering from obesity and sleep disorders.”