Vitract

At the end of last month, Chidozie Ojobor, Ph.D. joined the team at Next Health Boulder for a gut health talk. Dr. Ojobor walked patients at the clinic through the science behind microbiome testing and what it means for their care. Grateful to NEXT|HEALTH and Kylie Pillard for having us. Looking forward to more conversations like this one.

The founder of Paradigm Peptides was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison a couple of weeks ago. His company sold products to more than 54,000 customers across all 50 states and 80 countries. Products labeled as one compound contained another entirely. Some customers ended up in steroid-induced psychosis. Others experienced cardiovascular complications and hormone disruption that required long-term treatment. The Paradigm case is a supply chain story. The compounds themselves were incidental to what went wrong. The problem was that what was in the vial did not match what was on the label. Certificates of analysis were falsified. Products were imported from overseas and repackaged without independent verification. When an adverse event occurred, no one could trace what the patient had actually been given. For functional medicine providers navigating the peptide space, the case is a useful reminder of what due diligence actually requires. Polished websites and impressive-sounding lab credentials are not quality assurance. Accountability in any diagnostic or therapeutic context runs through the supply chain, not the marketing. The same principle applies to gut microbiome testing. A result is only as reliable as the methodology and quality controls behind it. At Vitract, this is what we consider to be what makes us stand out. In a world where gut microbiome science is not regulated, it becomes extremely important to trust the scientific leadership of the company. This is why our founders, Linta Mustafa and Chidozie Ojobor, Ph.D. continue to remain on the front lines and chat with as many clinicians as possible to help them understand the logic and rigor that goes behind our testing. Full story: https://lnkd.in/eqjXsvkb

Head lice are not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the microbiome. Bear with us. A study published in the Journal of Arthropod-Borne Diseases examined 100 primary school children, half with head lice infestations and half without. The finding was striking: Staphylococcus aureus, a pathogenic bacterium, was present on the scalps of 74% of infested children. In the control group, it was absent entirely. The commensal bacteria that belong on a healthy scalp, primarily Staphylococcus epidermidis, were largely displaced in the infested group. It is a small study in a specific population, and the authors are careful to say so. But the underlying principle is one that shows up across microbiome research regardless of body site: when the local environment is disrupted, the microbial balance shifts, and not in the host's favor. The pattern holds whether you are looking at a child's scalp in Nineveh or a patient's gut in your clinic. Full paper: https://lnkd.in/euzXcSxx

August is National Wellness Month. The wellness industry is worth $2.1 trillion. Only 1 in 8 American adults are metabolically healthy. Dietitian Ashley Koff RD wrote something worth reading this week. She calls it the Wellness Suck: the gap between how much we are spending on wellness and how unwell we actually are. More information, more tools, more protocols, and by most measures, worse outcomes. Her core argument is that the wellness industry keeps selling universal solutions to deeply individual problems. The ring, the shake, the supplement, the peptide, the app that will finally be the thing. None of it works without understanding the individual body it is being applied to. The numbers reflect it. Functional medicine clinicians have built entire practices around this premise. This is why unlike other gut microbiome testing companies, we focused entirely on partnering with healthcare providers rather than going straight to the consumer. Gut testing is more than one data point, but even with hundreds of datapoints, it must be evaluated within the context of the patient’s overall health. Full piece: https://lnkd.in/e7rM3BZ8

The EU AI Act's compliance deadline for high risk AI systems has been extended from August 2026 to December 2027. For organizations developing or deploying AI in clinical or diagnostic contexts, that includes systems used in employment, credit scoring, critical infrastructure, and healthcare adjacent applications. Several key obligations remain on their original timeline. Enforcement of rules for general purpose AI model providers begins August 2, 2026, meaning the European Commission can actively supervise providers and enforce penalties from that date. Transparency requirements for AI systems that interact with users or generate AI content are also still on schedule. Clinicians are already working alongside AI in ways that would have seemed speculative a few years ago. Tools like OpenEvidence are being used for rapid clinical literature review. Newer EMR platforms are embedding AI to flag patterns across patient records. At Vitract, AI helps synthesize lengthy microbiome test results into structured care plan summaries, so providers spend less time parsing data and more time acting on it. The scientific analysis behind those results is done by our research team. As AI becomes more embedded in clinical workflows, the question of how these systems are governed, validated, and made transparent to the clinicians relying on them is one the field will need to answer. The deadline extension gives organizations more runway. It does not make those questions less urgent. Full details on what changed: https://lnkd.in/evuwBt-v

Oats have been linked to lower cholesterol for decades. The mechanism was assumed to be beta-glucan. A new randomized controlled trial published in Nature Communications suggests the gut microbiome deserves more of the credit. In the study, participants with metabolic syndrome followed a two-day high-dose oat diet. LDL cholesterol dropped by 10% and total cholesterol by 8%. When researchers traced the mechanism, the cholesterol reduction was associated not with beta-glucan alone, but with phenolic metabolites produced by gut bacteria breaking down the oats, specifically ferulic acid and dihydroferulic acid. The gut was doing work that has gone largely unaccounted for. The sample size is small, 17 participants per group, and the authors call for a larger trial to confirm. The finding is also specific to a high-dose protocol, not a bowl of oatmeal at breakfast. Those are real limitations worth naming. What the study raises, though, is a question that functional medicine clinicians are well-positioned to ask: if the microbiome determines how effectively a patient converts a dietary intervention into a metabolic benefit, does it matter what their gut looks like before you make the recommendation? Researchers at Vitract have been seeing patterns consistent with this in our own data. Full paper: https://lnkd.in/eD62DGVs

A new randomized trial in Nature Communications enrolled 802 people with prediabetes and asked a deceptively simple question: does gut microbiome composition determine whether a dietary fiber intervention actually works? The answer, across six months and eight clinical centers, was yes. Dietary fiber improved glycemic control in two of four metabolic subgroups. In the other two, it did not. When researchers looked for what separated the responders from the non-responders, microbiome composition emerged as the distinguishing factor. Age, BMI, and baseline HbA1c did not explain the difference. The researchers then built a machine learning model using baseline gut microbiota features to predict, before the intervention began, which patients would respond. The model achieved an AUC of 0.81 and held up in two independent validation cohorts. The clinical implication is straightforward. Two patients with identical prediabetes diagnoses may respond completely differently to the same dietary recommendation. Knowing their microbiome composition in advance changes what you recommend. This is what precision medicine in metabolic care actually looks like. The gut is not a passive bystander in glucose regulation. Researchers at Vitract have been seeing similar patterns in our own data, and findings like this one are part of what continues to shape how we think about the diagnostic value of baseline microbiome profiling in metabolic health. Full paper: https://lnkd.in/dwexHBks

Researchers at Outpost Bio are using machine learning to map how gut microbes interact with each other and with drugs, at a scale and resolution that traditional methods cannot reach. The Scientist covered their work this week, and it is worth reading for anyone following where microbiome science is heading. One line stood out: their CEO noted that studying how drugs affect the microbiome is not yet a standard part of pharmaceutical development, despite mounting evidence that it should be. That gap is real. The microbiome influences how patients metabolize drugs, respond to treatment, and experience side effects. Most clinical protocols do not account for it. What this kind of research underscores for clinicians is that baseline microbiome data matters more than the field has historically treated it. Before a patient starts a new therapeutic protocol, knowing what their microbial environment looks like gives the clinician something to work from. Researchers at Vitract have found adjacent patterns in our own data, and the signal is consistent with where this science is heading. The science is moving fast. The clinical infrastructure for applying it is still catching up. Full article: https://lnkd.in/eV-DAesS

Tomorrow, we’re introducing DeepGut PLUS—Vitract’s most advanced gut test, designed to bring functional clarity to microbiome sequencing. Join Dr. Chidozie Ojobor, Ph.D., Co-Founder & CSO of Vitract, for a live walkthrough of how pairing microbial identity with functional gut markers helps move from data to confident clinical decisions. 🗓Tuesday, Feb 3 ⏰ 7 PM ET | 6 PM CT | 4 PM PT Last chance to register: https://lnkd.in/dAMiiXwP We look forward to seeing you there. #DeepGutPLUS #GutTesting #Microbiome #FunctionalMedicine #ClinicalClarity #Vitract

Vitract is taking gut testing further to expand the clinical clarity you need.   Join us for a live webinar on Tuesday, February 3, as we launch DeepGut PLUS - our most advanced test, that integrates sequencing with functional gut markers, designed to change the way you interpret results and guide care.   🗓 Tuesday, February 3 ⏰ 7:00 PM ET | 6:00 PM CT | 4:00 PM PT   Introducing DeepGut PLUS: When Gut Testing Needs to Go Deeper   In this session, Chidozie Ojobor, Ph.D. will do a thorough walkthrough of how DeepGut PLUS brings deeper insight into microbiome health and bridges the gap between microbial identity and real-world gut function.   You’ll learn how DeepGut PLUS helps you: - Gain a clearer understanding of digestive, inflammatory, immune, and metabolic activity. - Interpret microbiome sequencing results within the context of real functional outputs. - Move from microbial identification to more confident, targeted clinical decision-making If you already rely on microbiome sequencing, this session will show you how pairing microbial identity with functional insight can expand clinical clarity and confidence.   Save your spot and register here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gcEH9GFc   We look forward to seeing you there.