I tried a test that let me peek inside my microbiome, the 'forgotten organ' that scientists say is the future of medicine — and what I learned shocked me

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I tried an at-home gut-microbiome test kit made by the Silicon Valley startup uBiome.
Since being founded in 2012, uBiome has raised nearly $110 million and rocketed from a citizen science project to a key player on the life science venture scene.
Having experienced minor digestive issues for years, I hoped to learn more about the gut bacteria thought to play a role in everything from our mental health to our ability to process fat and gluten.
What I learned about my so-called forgotten organ shocked me.

If you've ever taken a probiotic, eaten yogurt, or added pickles to your sandwich, you've taken a step toward nourishing the vital community of life in your gut collectively known as your microbiome.

In recent years, scientists have described the microbiome as the "forgotten organ," thanks to its emerging role in affecting everything from your mood to your risk of disease.

The communities of bacteria living in our guts and elsewhere are thought to influence everything from our mental health to our ability to process fat and gluten.

So when I recently got the chance to try a microbiome testing kit at home for free, I took it. Called the "Explorer," my kit was made by uBiome, a Silicon Valley startup. Since its founding in 2012, uBiome has raised nearly $110 million in funding and transformed from a citizen science project to a key player on the life science venture scene.

Investors call uBiome a game-changer. Before the company, we had virtually no central repository for data on the microbiome — data that could ultimately lead to new treatments for deadly diseases.

"We will look back and say, 'I can't believe we lived our lives without this knowledge,'" Bryan Johnson, the cofounder of a venture firm called OS Fund that led uBiome's latest funding round, told Business Insider.

My uBiome test results came with a significant surprise. Here's what the experience was like.

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Jessica Richman founded uBiome as a citizen science project in 2012. Since then, her company has quietly risen to prominence. Investors think uBiome's data could be used to design new drugs for things like autoimmune diseases and cancer.

Richman created uBiome with crowdfunding nearly six years ago, in 2012, the same year that a huge government research initiative focused on the microbiome ended. The Human Microbiome Project's purpose was to study the diverse communities of microbes living in and on our bodies and learn what roles they play in health and disease.

But Richman didn't want to wait years to see those results turn into real products for people.

"I couldn't miss the opportunity to be a part of the beginning of the microbiome revolution," Richman told Y Combinator, a startup hub that backed uBiome, in 2014.

This September, her company raised $83 million in a funding round that transformed it into a key player on the life science venture scene. Hundreds of thousands of customers have since had their microbiomes sequenced by uBiome researchers, and the company hopes that data can offer the first concrete insights into how microbes affect our health.

"uBiome basically invented the category of the microbiome," Johnson said. "What if we could understand this thing that is such a big component of what makes us who we are?"

So far, uBiome has collected microbiome samples from 250,000 customers, Richman told Business Insider in September. She aims to reach 1 million samples by 2019, she said.

I got a free uBiome test kit at an event organized by the Silicon Valley venture firm Rock Health. At $89, the kit the most basic version of the three tests uBiome offers. The others require a physician to sign off.

Having experienced mild digestive issues for years, I was excited to learn more about how the bacteria in my gut were faring. Would I learn more about what was causing my occasional bloating, cramps, and indigestion? Or walk away from the test more confused than before?

See the rest of the story at Business Insider