InnerBuddies releases Longitudinal Data <-- how InnerBuddies customers have been able to improve their Gut Health

Most people assume the gut microbiome is relatively stable over time. InnerBuddies' longitudinal data suggests otherwise.

At InnerBuddies, just out of curiosity to see whether we are on the right path, we analyzed people who completed multiple microbiome tests and compared their last test against their very first test (some people have even done 8 tests already).

We defined 6 independent “improvement modules”:

1. Increase in Shannon diversity
2. Increase in overall Gut Health Microbiome Index
3. Increase in beneficial bacteria
4. Decrease in unfavorable bacteria
5. Improvement in beneficial microbial pathways
6. Reduction in unfavorable microbial pathways

What makes this particularly interesting is that we did not verify whether customers actually followed the personalized advice recommendations. So this is real-life longitudinal data, not in a controlled clinical trial setting where participants are really urged to follow-up on all interventions.

Despite that, we found:
📈 96.97% improved in at least 1 module
📈 84.18% improved in at least 2 modules
📈 57.24% improved in at least 3 modules

Shannon Index and the Gut Microbiome Health Index were actually the modules which had the highest improvement rates (those 2 are actually more important than the other 4 modules which is interesting).

This is important because microbiome optimization is not a single metric problem. A person can improve diversity while still having unfavorable pathways, or improve bacterial composition while functional capacity remains unchanged. That is exactly why we believe longitudinal tracking matters.
The gut microbiome is dynamic, responsive, and measurable over time — especially when combining taxonomic changes with functional pathway analysis.

We expect these kinds of longitudinal datasets to become increasingly important for:
- personalized nutrition
- preventive health
- longevity
- metabolic health
- gut-brain research

We are planning to use this analysis data continuously to further improve on our personalized recommendations. One of the things we are already doing in our platform is understanding which nutrition interventions drive the strongest and most durable microbiome improvements across different population groups (based on all data).

2-minute self-check Is a gut microbiome test useful for you? Answer a few quick questions and find out if a microbiome test is actually useful for you. ✔ Takes 2 minutes ✔ Based on your symptoms & lifestyle ✔ Clear yes/no recommendation Check if a test is right for me →

2-minute self-check Is a gut microbiome test useful for you? Answer a few quick questions and find out if a microbiome test is actually useful for you. ✔ Takes 2 minutes ✔ Based on your symptoms & lifestyle ✔ Clear yes/no recommendation Check if a test is right for me →