Gut microbiota analysis tests would have no interest

Gut microbiota excites research and patients. This set of micro-organisms located in the digestive tract would play a role in the development of our personality, the appearance of diseases such as depression, eczema or obesity, would prevent certain medical treatments from being effective or would promote the development of colon cancer. A whole lot of things that reveal the influence of the intestinal microbiota and which explain why researchers and patients are looking at it more and more closely.

There is a lack of large studies on the microbiota

Many laboratories have rushed into the breach and offer “analyzes of the intestinal microbiota, at often very high prices, with the promise of guiding the patient and the doctor”notes the French National Society of Gastroenterology (SNFGE) in a communicated published on January 29. The SNFGE warns against these tests which “have no clinical interest for the doctor or his patient”, she wrote in the press release. Riding the wave, these tests “should not be prescribed by physicians regardless of their specialty”adds the company.

However, the SNFGE does not deny the interest and potential of the microbiota in the fight against certain diseases. Despite this, she notes that he “to date there is still a lack of large studies evaluating and validating the interest of biomarkers from the microbiota to guide the doctor in specific clinical situations.”

The microbiota is the future

This growing interest of the public and professionals in the microbiota is viewed positively by society. She notes that “the fact that many serious industrialists are currently interested in it makes it possible to envisage the use in clinical practice of biomarkers derived from the microbiota in the coming years. It is likely that the tests that will be validated and used in the future will be based on targeted analyzes specific to each pathology and each clinical question asked..”