Hi, it's Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand.
Thanks for coming back.
SIBO testing, breath testing are they accurate tests?
Well, I stopped doing breath testing several years ago.
In fact, because of that reason, I found that the test results weren't really that great.
They didn't give me that much useful information at all to be honest.
I've found far superior information, doing comprehensive stool analysis, looking at a
wider range of parameters, and also in particular spending more time talking to the patient
about their lifestyle and their diet.
I found that far more superior in terms of outcome than actually doing a test with SIBO
for the patient and treating off the test.
Now, there's some really good information online.
Chris Kresser, the acupuncturist from the States is an adopter I've always had a huge
amount of respect for.
If you look at the kresserinstitute.com, you can read about the SIBO tests.
In fact, I might put a link from the Kresser Institute in the description box, so you can
click on it and read that.
And the article is excellent because it explains about my fears about the false positives and
the false negatives for the test.
It also explains there's not currently no test for SIFO or small intestinal fungal overgrowth.
Now I know several clients I've seen have had a candida issues in the small bowel, we've
seen that by the symptoms that they are producing, but no test can validate that.
So, and that can again throw a false spotlight on SIBO, so you can get false readings because
of mixed sort of bacteria, fungal issues you've got in the small bowel.
Sure, methane and hydrogen test for many naturopathic docs particularly is still a go to for SIBO,
but I don't really find the accuracy there with most labs.
I just find the results not really supportive in terms of how I'm going to work with that
client, but I did first initially use a lot of SIBO breath tests and work off them, directly
off them.
I really didn't find that much difference at all, compared to how I would treat the
patient without the test results.
When you have clinical experience, years of clinic experience, you don't generally need
a lot of tests because you can usually work out what's wrong with people by what they
tell you, by the subjective symptoms and the objective symptoms.
Check out my other video I made, I think it was last week on the difference between signs
and symptoms.
So naturopaths in particular are very interested in symptoms, but also signs.
Doctors are more interested in signs, but okay.
What the patient tells me is very important, but also how I filter that information in
my mind and work out what's valid for the case and what's not is even more important.
So clinical experience and observations, good clinical observations in my opinion, generally
override many of these types of GI tests that you can do and the outcomes can be fantastic.
So if you're watching this and you've got SIBO, find a doctor, who's got plenty of clinical
experience and let him or her guide you through a protocol, particularly one that's very gentle
to start with and builds up.
If you see someone and they've got crazy ideas or have weird protocols or start talking about
cures or things like that, or this test will guarantee to diagnose you and then I can cure
you with this, you need to keep away from those kinds of cowboys out there because there
are some weird people out there claiming to cure any kind of thing on two legs or four
legs or whatever.
So yeah, there you have it, SIBO tests I'm not sure.
I don't really think that we're yet at that point with SIBO testing.
Unlike comprehensive stool testing, where we're going to get a very high quality report,
that's going to be outstanding time after time in the clinic.
So up to you, I put my money on the comprehensive stool test over the SIBO test any day.
Thanks for tuning in.