Courtney Jackson, MPH, CN is an accomplished licensed nutrition and public Health professional with a demonstrated history of working in the wellness and health industry. We reached out to her to get a nutritionist’s perspective on the Thryve Gut Health Test Kit. We asked her to perform an honest Thryve Gut Test review in exchange for access to the program, a Premium upgrade, and one month of custom probiotics. Here is her review.

Why A Nutritionist Did a Thryve Gut Test Review

It wasn’t long ago that “good nutrition” mostly included following the early 90’s Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyramid [1]. As a nation-wide attempt to introduce healthy eating habits, the Food Guide Pyramid was an iconic beginning to widespread nutrition culture. Today, but much unlike the ’90s, eating well is a personalized art that goes far beyond just following a standardized, nation-wide outline. We are waving goodbye to diet culture and warmly welcoming the idea that nutrition isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept.

At the heart of healthy eating habits is a realistic approach to sustainable and long-term nutrition goals.

We all have goals we set for ourselves, for example:

• Eating for Longevity

• Dietary Adjustments for Weight Loss

• Avoiding Certain Foods Due to Allergies or Disease

The problem is, with so many opinions floating around, it’s challenging to determine what is actually beneficial to your body while meeting your needs. You can read online articles endlessly about nutrition habits that worked for the author, but it isn’t easy to pinpoint what will work best for you.

It’s unlikely that any of us can be easily categorized into one nutrition group because we all have unique needs to support our body’s optimal function. The great news is that science continues to lead us in a more positive direction, supporting the concept of truly unique nutrition.

There are many great, science-backed personalized health companies emerging, all with the goal to offer consumers a new approach to discovering their unique needs. Rather than spending effort attempting different methods based on a “best guess,” it may be worth the time to try a personalized nutrition approach to determine a starting point that makes sense.

With scientists and doctors from Harvard, Stanford, and Yale on their scientific advisory board, Thryve offers the world’s first gut health product that incorporates microbiota testing with dietary and probiotic recommendations. Unlike other DNA competitors, Thryve focuses on microbiome testing to determine what your gut is really trying to tell you.

The concept of gut health doesn’t just stop at ensuring you get enough fiber in your diet; many scientists believe that gut bacteria may hold the key to addressing many health issues, potentially including emotion and mood [2]. The good news is that certain lifestyle factors can impact your gut health, giving you power over how your gut operates. The Thryve Gut Health Program gives you comprehensive actionable insights to help you develop a healthy gut.

A Nutritionist’s Thryve Gut Test Experience

I was thrilled to receive my Thryve kit in the mail and have the option to receive feedback on my personal gut makeup from the comfort of my own home. I didn’t have to make a doctor’s appointment to pick up and carry out a fecal collection kit in front of an entire waiting room. My kit arrived quickly in discreet packaging with clear instructions (including illustrations) to follow. After a quick and painless stool sample collection from the toilet paper, I dropped my box off at a drive-up shipping station and eagerly awaited my results. 

Within just a couple of weeks, I was able to access my online account with hours’ worth of feedback! I was shocked, to say the least, at the amount of information I had easy access to, all with quick summaries and action ideas for me to try through their Premium in-app upgrade.

I didn’t just get a simple bacteria report; I had access to comparative results to other healthy guts (and even found out my gut is a 100% match to that of an elite skier – and boy do I love skiing!), inflammation reports, potential food intolerances, intestinal junction feedback, metabolism, sleep, and vitamin reports, and even prevention ideas for cardiovascular and immune health. I’ve taken my fair share of DNA health tests, but my Thryve results equipped me with a much greater deal of powerful information I didn’t even know I needed.

Thryve Gut Test Kit Review Thoughts

What was most surprising to me was my results’ accuracy compared to what I already felt I knew about my current overall health state. I have struggled with young-age high triglycerides, difficulty with protein, egg, and olive consumption, as well as abdominal pain and anxiety for many years.

When I received my results, they were spot on. Thryve offers suggestions on what health issues and symptoms you may be experiencing compared to your gut makeup, and most of mine resonates strongly with what I was already working on addressing. They gave me a gut wellness score and a microbiome diversity score that compared my bad bacteria to good bacteria ratios while providing comprehensive actional insights on how to bring diversity to my gut biome.

What I was missing in my personal life, however, was a list of dietary recommendations that supported the growth of bacteria I was deficient in to optimize my gut balance. Thryve‘ algorithms provided me with suggested foods to remedy this!

My top foods included:

• Artichoke

• Celery

• Asparagus

• Avocado

• Apricot

• Asian Pears

• Beans

• Lentils

• Hazelnuts

• Turkey

• Buckwheat

• Bran

• Basil

• Chives

• Ghee

• Dark Chocolate

• Green Tea

Thankfully, my list included many of my favorites, but also new foods I can easily incorporate into my diet more often than I do now. I’m now focusing on my new food list and took a trip to the store this week to stock more gut-friendly food items in my home and began avoiding foods that disrupt my personal gut makeup.

Review of Thryve Custom Probiotic Blends

Aside from my food suggestions, I also ordered Thryve’s subscription-based recommended probiotic mix that was specifically designed to address my main health concerns. Based on my test results, my probiotic supplement contains 100 Billion CFU of strains that best pertain to my individual health needs, a truly unique experience that no other company offers. The bottle also came shaded to protect my strains from light exposure.

I’m working towards my health goals now using Thryve’s recommendations and already feel empowered with my newfound knowledge that I wouldn’t have had without a science-backed gut test or by simply reading online.

Lastly, what impressed me the most about Thryve was their robust collection of scientific articles, published right on their site and in my results dashboard. Thryve’s total reference library includes over 36,000 scientific articles that span over 4,000 microbes, and I have access to many of their articles to review for myself.

As a professional nutrition researcher, transparent and easy-to-access to study links are a rare commodity Thryve wasn’t afraid to boast to their customers, and their up-front style feels warming.

Would I Recommend Thryve Gut Health Test Kit?

I’ve already recommended the Thryve gut microbiome test to fellow colleagues and family members based on their commitment to gut science, easy testing process, unmatchable access to robust personalized results, and monthly shipment option to probiotics tailored to individual needs.

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