Product Review
Discover Your Microbiome with Injoy
Our gut microbiomes consist of approximately 100 trillion microorganisms, from 500-1,000 different species, consisting of bacteria, viruses, yeast, and parasites. Harmony and balance among these species are crucial to supporting our overall health. Genetics, lifestyle, diet, environment, and other factors also have an impact on the collection of microorganisms that live in the gut.
Injoy
Luca Cuccia, a scientist and advocate for gut health and education, and Michael Golfi, a software engineer and a person living with Crohn’s disease, founded Injoy to help people improve their gut health so that they can work toward a better quality of life.2
Injoy is an AI-driven platform that integrates lifestyle, symptoms, and microbiome data to identify unique triggers and generates personalized recommendations based on the latest peer-reviewed research.
The Injoy Starter Kit includes at home microbiome testing, a personalized report, a bathroom sensor, and a free three-month subscription to their app in which you can track your diet, digestive symptoms, and lifestyle. The testing kit has three swab tubes for collecting stool samples and a prepaid envelope to mail the samples to their lab for testing.
Once you begin checking in with Injoy and send your stool samples to the lab, you will receive a personalized report discussing your results and tips on diet and lifestyle based on your unique gut microbiome and health profile. The report discusses the composition of your gut microbiome, including the varieties of bacteria and their stability. It provides comparative analyses to the bacteria present in healthy individuals and those living with conditions that affect the gut microbiome, such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Injoy’s report also looks at how pro-inflammatory foods might be associated with digestive symptoms, such as abdominal pain, bloating, constipation, and gas and provides food recommendations rich in beneficial bacteria with information on how they can support your health. Eating an anti-inflammatory diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, for instance, can help reduce inflammation and manage diseases and conditions associated with chronic inflammation.
Injoy provides a time-specific snapshot of your gut bacteria composition over the course of about 2 weeks. However, several factors can influence your gut microbiome, such as dietary changes, stress, hygiene, medications (e.g., antibiotics, NSAIDs, colonoscopy prep), and supplements (e.g., prebiotics, probiotics), so the report simply captures a moment in time.
Injoy is currently available in English, but a French version of the website will be available in late 2024. The price for the Injoy Starter Kit is CAD 352.00 including shipping in Canada and the US.
To be clear, Injoy is not a diagnostic or predictive tool for diseases and disorders. There are a variety of factors, such as family history, age, environment, lifestyle habits, as well as screening tests (e.g., blood tests, colonoscopy), which support physicians in making a diagnosis. In comparison, Injoy develops the personalized reports and calculations using a proprietary learning algorithm, gene sequencing, and comparative analyses with thousands of profiles, informed by their integrated research database. All data they collect are anonymized and encrypted.
The use of AI technology is continuously evolving and is an exciting area of research in healthcare delivery and management. If you have any health-related concerns, please consult a doctor. For major changes to your diet, please seek the advice of a registered dietitian.