How Gut Microbiome Testing Helps Functional Health Coaches: an Interview with Sandi Scheinbaum, PhD

Hi, I’m Sandy Scheinbaum, and I’m the founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (FMCA). We are a collaboration with the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), and our mission is to train people to become health coaches. Primarily, we train by teaching them functional medicine principles paired with positive psychology.

I was at a conference about a year ago and I met some people from Jona Health. They talked to me about this really cool test they had to test the microbiome!

We’re learning so much about the microbiome and we teach about it at FMCA. Many believe the microbiome is the key to your overall health. For example, we want to have diversity in the microbiome, a healthy population of commensal bacteria, and to be free of parasites.

I was curious because I had a stool test done a number of years ago by a different company. Jona I thought was unique because it looks at the latest research and is all about using artificial intelligence.

I got the kit, and one of the things that often happens when you get a kit like this is, if you’re like me, you put off doing the testing. This is because of the “yuck factor” of doing a stool test. But with this test I found it very easy to use, so I mailed it in and a few weeks later I got my results through email. I had the chance to sit down with the people at Jona to interpret my results and what they found made a lot of sense.

So, first of all, I was very relieved that I did not have any parasites, but I learned that I could use some more diversity in my microbiome. That made sense to me because I don’t eat a very diverse diet, I’m carnivore-ish. Many years ago, when I was a vegetarian, I ate tons of vegetables but I’ve cut back somewhat. This was eye opening and it was a reminder to me to eat the rainbow of colors. We teach our coaches that that is an easy way to guide people to having more diversity on their plate. So, that’s what I went back to. I went to the grocery store after having this test done and decided to purchase some fruits and vegetables that I hadn’t been eating much of.

I might repeat it in six months or a year from now. I’m excited about this because it's something that our coaches can educate people about. They can be the ones educating and helping their clients to make decisions. The results are right there, including research studies, so the coach can help people get inspired by these results and, like I did, go to the store and say “Okay, I’m going to make some changes and see what happens the next time I’m tested.”

I’m excited about this stool test, and I’m excited that its applications are going to be increasing as we have better and better artificial intelligence. FMCA is so excited to partner with Jona Health so our coaches can guide people to order and use tests of this nature.