Do I need this test if my gut symptoms are mild?

Often, yes. The gut is the absorptive surface for every nutrient and supplement in your plan, and a large share of your immune system lives in its lining. Inflammatory and metabolic signals from a quietly dysfunctional gut show up first as fatigue, brain fog, weight resistance, or skin changes, not as classic GI symptoms. If those are in the picture, the gut is worth reading directly.

How does the collection work?

A mailed at-home stool collection kit, returned to Genova in a pre-paid container. The collection happens over a single morning. No clinic visit required. Results come back in about three weeks and are interpreted with you.

What's included with GI Effects?

$546 all in: the Genova GI Effects test at cost, plus Dr. Tagge's fee, which covers his written interpretation and a protocol built against your specific findings. GI Effects stays available a la carte on the testing menu. Inside a membership, testing like this runs on your package's rhythm at Dr. Tagge's actual cost, with the interpretation and protocol part of the relationship.

Can I submit this for reimbursement?

You'll receive an itemized receipt you can submit to your plan. Your plan administrator is the authority on what your account will accept.

Should the gut work happen inside a membership?

For most people, yes. When gut testing belongs inside an ongoing plan, ongoing care is the better fit: direct access to Dr. Tagge and testing at his actual cost, gut testing among them, with the rhythm set by your biology rather than a package. If you would rather measure once first, the Longevity Baseline includes the gut panel. We scope it together on a free call.

GUT PROGRAM

Your gut sets your energy ceiling.

It digests your food, absorbs your nutrients, and defends most of your body. We run a full stool analysis of how well you digest and absorb, the balance of your microbiome, and the inflammation in your gut lining. Then we correct what we find through food, targeted nutrients, and microbiome support, with a physician guiding every step. When it runs cleanly, you have energy and clear thinking. When it does not, the problem rarely stays in your gut. The fatigue, the brain fog, the skin and mood you blame on everything else often start here.

Talk to Dr. Tagge

Available to North Carolina residents.

Where to start

Read the gut. Then work it with me.

Talk to Dr. Tagge: it names the reads worth doing, the gut included, and the first moves to make. When you want it found, fixed, and proven alongside a physician, that is the membership.

Talk to Dr. Tagge How longevity is built in

Prefer the lab’s own documentation? Learn more about GI Effects.

Why it matters

Why the gut comes first.

The gut is the absorptive surface for every nutrient and supplement you take, and a large share of your immune system lives in its lining. It signals your brain, your metabolism, and your skin. So when something is chronic, the gut is the foundation to read first, both to get to the root and to get your performance back. Here is how a struggling gut shows up.

Persistent digestive symptoms (bloating, irregular stools, reflux).
Food reactions that have crept in or expanded.
Skin issues (eczema, rosacea, acne) that resist topical treatment.
Mood instability, anxiety, or brain fog without obvious trigger.
Autoimmune flares or persistent low-grade inflammation.

The stakes

Most chronic problems start here.

Your gut is the absorptive surface for every nutrient and every supplement in your plan. A large share of your immune system lives in its lining. Gut dysfunction rarely stays in the gut.

The inflammation moves into the rest of the system. The nutrients you eat stop landing the way they should. The metabolic signal that should be coming from butyrate-producing fermentation goes quiet. What shows up as fatigue, brain fog, weight resistance, or unexplained skin trouble is often the gut talking upstream.

The outcome

What changes when the source is found.

The inflammatory load comes down. Calprotectin moves on a repeat panel.
Digestion and absorption restore. The food and the supplements start landing.
The butyrate-producing fermentation that drives GLP-1 and insulin sensitivity comes back online.
Bloating, irregularity, and post-meal fog fade as the actual cause gets handled.
Energy holds. The system stops working against you.

These are targets we measure toward, traceable to findings on your panel. Not a cure. Not a guaranteed outcome. The repeat panel is how we know it’s actually moved.

What it measures

Five readings from one sample.

The readings interact. I don’t read any one of them in isolation.

Infection

Read first. It changes everything else.

Whether a true pathogen or an opportunistic organism is present, and at what level. An active infection changes the entire plan, so I settle this question before anything else. The panel includes a sensitivity report when treatment is warranted, so the right agent is matched to what's actually there.

Inflammation

Whether the lining is irritated.

Calprotectin and secretory IgA tell us whether the gut lining is inflamed and whether your mucosal immune defense is intact or worn down. A weakened defense leaves the door open for opportunistic organisms.

The microbial community

Which species are present, which are thin.

Structure, not a scorecard. Which keystone species are present, which are missing, whether the balance has tilted toward inflammatory patterns. Read in context with the rest of the panel, not as an isolated diversity score.

What they produce

The metabolic lever the gut is supposed to be running.

Your gut bacteria ferment fiber into short-chain fatty acids, the most important being butyrate. Butyrate fuels the cells lining your colon and signals your metabolism directly. When butyrate-producing fermentation is intact, that signal reaches the receptors that release GLP-1 and improve insulin sensitivity. A gut that produces little butyrate is losing a metabolic lever, not just a digestive one.

Digestion + absorption

Whether the food is even landing.

Pancreatic elastase and fat absorption markers tell me whether your enzymes are producing enough and whether food is being absorbed properly. If digestion is adequate, I do not add enzymes you do not need. If it isn't, I know where the gap is.

Why it changes care

A decision tree, not a list.

Most gut testing produces a list of organisms and a diversity score. This produces a decision tree.

An inflammatory marker that stays elevated while metabolic markers improve points away from food and toward a structural source. A microbiome that looks imbalanced but is still producing normal butyrate is a targeted problem, not a collapse, and it gets a targeted fix rather than a blunt one. When an organism does need treatment, the sensitivity report tells us which agent it will actually respond to, and treatment is only initiated when the full course can be completed.

Inside the membership

Remove. Restore. Rebuild. Repair.

The sequence is deliberate. Some supports are safe from day one. Others are staged until after the inflammation and any infection are cleared.

Remove

Clear what's driving the problem first. An active infection, a food trigger, a maintenance medication that's destabilizing the system. Some of the rebuild work waits until this step is done.

Restore

Restore digestion upstream of absorption. Pancreatic enzymes if elastase is low. Stomach acid support if indicated. The food you eat starts landing.

Rebuild

Rebuild the community with targeted prebiotics and probiotics. Matched to what your panel showed thin, not a blanket strain pack from the supplement aisle.

Repair

Repair the mucosal lining once the inflammatory load is down. Compounds the lining can actually use. Layered in last because most of them don't do their job while infection or inflammation is still in the picture.

Have a question first?

Text Email Schedule a call

(980) 403-3983care@taggehealth.com

This is the work inside the membership: your metabolism measured and corrected on the testing rhythm your biology calls for, at Dr. Tagge’s actual cost, every result read by a physician. We scope it together on a free call. Talk to Dr. Tagge to see your first moves.

Talk to Dr. Tagge How longevity is built in

Common questions

Questions worth asking first.

Most direct-to-consumer stool tests run DNA only. DNA tells you what genetic material is present but cannot distinguish living organisms from dead ones, and cannot tell you which agent an organism would respond to if treated. GI Effects runs DNA, live culture, and direct microscopy on the same sample. That combination is how I avoid treating a ghost, avoid missing a real one, and pick the right treatment when one is needed.