The vivaLAB Testing Protocol: A Deep Dive into Your Body's Core Data

A standard blood test gives you a snapshot. To understand what's actually driving your energy, mood and long-term health, you need to look at two deeper systems: your metabolism and your gut microbiome. Here's what vivaLAB tests, how, and why the combination matters more than either test alone.

IN SHORT
vivaINSIGHT combines gut microbiome sequencing (vivaBIOME) and urine-based metabolic testing (vivaMETABOLITE) to build a detailed picture of your biology. Retesting on a set schedule shows how your markers change over time, not just where you started.

vivaMETABOLITE: what a urine-based metabolic test reveals

Your metabolism is the sum of every biochemical process that converts food into energy. As your body processes nutrients, it produces metabolic byproducts that are cleared largely through urine, which makes urine a genuinely informative window into how that system is running, creating a detailed "metabolic fingerprint" [1].

vivaMETABOLITE, the urine-based component of vivaINSIGHT, uses mass spectrometry and chromatography to identify and quantify a wide panel of these metabolites (100+ consumer markers, 2,500+ at research-grade), revealing:

• Nutritional status: whether key vitamins are being efficiently processed, or whether markers point to deficiency.
• Energy production: how well your cells' mitochondria are functioning.
• Detoxification pathways: whether your body is clearing toxins effectively, or certain pathways are overloaded.
• Enzyme function: bottlenecks that point to subtle enzyme deficiencies or imbalances.

This kind of metabolic detail can uncover things a standard blood test misses entirely, because it captures ongoing metabolic activity rather than a single moment in time.

vivaBIOME: why the sequencing method matters

Your gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, collectively the gut microbiome, that influence digestion, immunity, metabolism and even brain function via the gut-brain axis [2]. A microbiome test analyses this community from a stool sample, but the sequencing method used determines how much you actually learn.

• 16S rRNA sequencing (the common, lower-cost method) reads a single marker gene, giving a basic overview of bacterial genera. It can't distinguish species or strains, and it misses fungi and viruses entirely.
• Shotgun metagenomic sequencing (the vivaBIOME method) sequences all genetic material in the sample [3], which provides two real advantages: species- and strain-level identification, important because different strains of the same bacterial species can have opposite effects on health [4]; and functional analysis, showing what your microbiome's genes are actually capable of doing, including producing anti-inflammatory compounds like butyrate or synthesising vitamins [5].

vivaBIOME assesses 100+ consumer markers (5,000+ at research-grade) using this method. Understanding your microbiome at this resolution is the difference between generic advice ("eat more fibre") and a targeted plan grounded in what your own gut ecosystem is actually doing.

Why retesting matters more than a single result

Your metabolism and microbiome are dynamic, constantly shifting in response to diet, stress, sleep, age and environment [6]. A single test is a genuinely useful baseline, but its real value comes from tracking change over time.

vivaBALANCE builds this in directly: vivaBALANCE 360 retests you at 4 months and 9 months after baseline, and vivaBALANCE 180 retests at 3 months, with 6-monthly testing on renewal after that culmination point. Regular retesting lets you:

1. Track progress with objective evidence of whether your nutrition and lifestyle changes are working.
2. See trends, whether microbial diversity is increasing, whether metabolic efficiency is improving.
3. Catch shifts early, before subtle imbalances become noticeable symptoms.

The lifestyle assessment: adding real-world context

Biological data means little without context, which is why the vivaBALANCE Lifestyle Assessment captures the real-world factors shaping your biology: daily energy, mood and stress patterns; diet and nutrition habits; sleep and exercise; and personal and family health history.

Correlating this lifestyle data with your test results is what turns "what is happening" into "why it's happening." A few examples:

• Stress and the gut: low microbial diversity on its own doesn't point to a clear next step. Paired with a lifestyle assessment showing high chronic stress and poor sleep, a clearer picture forms, since elevated cortisol from stress is associated with reduced levels of some beneficial bacteria [7], so the priority becomes a stress-management plan alongside, not instead of, any dietary changes.
• Diet and metabolism: high oxidative stress markers paired with a diet log showing low fruit and vegetable intake points to insufficient antioxidant intake for your body's current metabolic demands.
• Family history and general awareness: where relevant family health history exists, correlating it with your own biological markers can help inform a broader, general health-optimisation conversation with your own healthcare provider. vivaLAB's role here is to surface relevant data points for that conversation, not to diagnose or predict a specific disease outcome.

How it comes together

The core of the vivaBALANCE approach is integration: rather than a single biological data point, vivaOS (vivaLAB's AI health intelligence platform) brings together your metabolic testing (vivaMETABOLITE), microbiome sequencing (vivaBIOME), and lifestyle assessment into a single vivaINSIGHT report.

• vivaMETABOLITE to understand your body's metabolic engine.
• vivaBIOME, using shotgun metagenomics, for a high-resolution, functional map of your gut ecosystem.
• A lifestyle assessment for real-world context.
• vivaOS to integrate these data streams into a single report.
• Scheduled retesting so your plan adapts as your biology does.

Combining these methods moves beyond generic, one-size-fits-all advice toward a plan grounded in your own data.

See what your own biology is telling you
A vivaINSIGHT test combines vivaMETABOLITE and vivaBIOME with your lifestyle context in a single report. Pair it with vivaBALANCE 360 for scheduled retesting at 4 and 9 months, so you can see whether your plan is actually working.

vivaLAB's services are designed to support health optimisation and are not a substitute for medical advice. Consult a qualified health practitioner for individual health decisions.

References:

1. Bouatra, S., Aziat, F., Mandal, R., et al. (2013). The Human Urine Metabolome. PLoS ONE, 8(9), e73076.
2. Cryan, J. F., O'Riordan, K. J., Cowan, C. S. M., et al. (2019). The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis. Physiological Reviews, 99(4), 1877-2013. PMID: 31460832.
3. Quince, C., Walker, A. W., Simpson, J. T., Loman, N. J., & Segata, N. (2017). Shotgun metagenomics, from sampling to analysis. Nature Biotechnology, 35(9), 833-844. PMID: 28898207.
4. Ranjan, R., Rani, A., Metwally, A., McGee, H. S., & Perkins, D. L. (2016). Analysis of the microbiome: advantages of whole genome shotgun versus 16S amplicon sequencing. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 469(4), 967-977. PMID: 26718401.
5. Nash, A. K., Auchtung, T. A., Wong, M. C., et al. (2017). The gut mycobiome of the Human Microbiome Project healthy cohort. Microbiome, 5(1), 153. PMID: 29178920.
6. Rothschild, D., Weissbrod, O., Barkan, E., et al. (2018). Environment dominates over host genetics in shaping human gut microbiota. Nature, 555(7695), 210-215. PMID: 29489753.
7. Madison, A., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2019). Stress, depression, diet, and the gut microbiota: human-bacteria interactions at the core of psychoneuroimmunology and nutrition. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 28, 105-110. PMID: 32395568.