Longevity company Viome just debuted its personalized Oral Health Solution products, designed to take at-home oral care to the next level. Viome’s RNA sequencing technology and AI platform will provide deep insights into oral microbiome and get personalized oral biotics.
With growing evidence linking the oral microbiome to overall health, the company now offers an RNA-based saliva test that allows individuals to target the root cause of underlying activities leading to common oral health concerns like tooth decay, gum inflammation and bad breath. This test is also an opportunity for Viome to provide customized food recommendations and supplement formulas to support overall systemic health.
"Our Oral Health initiative is a decisive response to the escalating evidence underscoring the crucial role the oral microbiome plays in maintaining not only our oral health but our overall well-being. Our personalized oral care products add to our existing custom-made supplements and personalized gut biotics. Viome continues to be the only company utilizing the power of RNA technology to discover deep health insights and utilize these valuable insights to develop precise and personalized nutritional products,” said Naveen Jain, Founder and CEO of Viome.
Personalized lozenges
Viome’s VRx My·Biotics Oral Lozenges include a personalized formulation featuring pre, pro, and post-biotics along with amino acids and minerals that promote a healthy oral environment. Viome’s Oral Lozenges deliver 6 billion CFU of biotics and other personalized ingredients tailored to each person’s own oral microbiome and Viome Oral Health Intelligence Test results. These ingredients are formulated to help bring the oral microbiome back into balance, protect teeth and gums from harmful microbial activity, support the immune system, and promote overall health throughout the body.
“Each lozenge formulation contains your personalized oral biotic formula selected from a database of nearly 20 clinically studied ingredients, specially tailored to your individual needs identified from your oral microbiome test. Every formula includes probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics. While the specific probiotic strains will vary depending on your test results, each formulation will feature one or more BLIS probiotics. BLIS probiotics are a specialized type of beneficial bacteria that produce specific antimicrobial substances called bacteriocins, which target harmful bacteria in the oral cavity and throat. These probiotics are believed to promote oral and immune health by creating a balanced microbial environment in the mouth,” Jain told us.
He added that lozenges are the ideal format for delivering ingredients to the oral cavity because they provide direct and prolonged contact with the mouth's surfaces, allowing the probiotics to colonize and exert their beneficial effects.
“Prebiotics help feed to beneficial bacteria in the oral cavity and postbiotics provide beneficial metabolites that help nourish the oral microbiome. The slow dissolution of lozenges in the mouth ensures a controlled release of probiotics and other ingredients, increasing the likelihood of these beneficial nutrients reaching and establishing themselves in the oral microbiome. This helps promote a healthy balance of bacteria and supports oral health,” said Jain.
Oral health scoring
Guru Banavar, Founding CTO, Head of Discovery, AI & Engineering, GM of Diagnostics at Viome, explained that the company provides a suite of oral health insight scores that together provide a holistic view of an individual’s oral health status.
“Each score represents a key molecular mechanism, selected based on the underlying biochemical activities. As an example, the Oral Inflammatory Pathways score assesses microbial signals that correlate with inflammation of the oral cavity. During the score design process, we examine the relevant scientific and clinical domains, like the activities associated with microbial colonization, consumption of salivary proteins, and destruction of host tissues in the mouth, and identify the microbial features associated with these phenomena. These selected features are then combined using machine learning,” Banavar said.
An up-and-coming category
Jain said he sees oral health as an up-and-coming category built on the growing interest in at-home testing, the combination of people wanting to improve their oral health as well as get healthier overall.
“People are now taking proactive, preventative measures for better health and this will usher in a new era in oral self-care. Recently, several research breakthroughs have identified the microbial ecosystem of the mouth to be just as important as the gut microbiome.
Seven years ago, no one was really talking about gut health and now, you can’t escape it. The diverse ecosystem of bacteria within the mouth can impact the health of our gums and teeth, influencing issues such as mouth sores, bad breath, tooth loss, dental cavities - or caries - and bleeding gums. Science has linked the oral microbiome to many chronic diseases and health issues, including cognitive impairment, mental health, diabetes, sleep, pregnancy outcomes, many types of cancers, neurological disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular diseases, and cystic fibrosis,” said Jain.
Up next, Viome will introduce a personalized toothpaste with a patented base formula designed to dissolve the molecular bond between plaque and teeth.
