Redefining Medicine From Symptoms to Systems How Jona Gut Testing Transforms Clinical Decision Making | Helen Messier, MD, PhD, Leo Grady, PhD, & Lawrence Kosinski, MD
Feb 10, 2026
Leo Grady, PhD, AI and microbiome founder; Helen Messier, MD, PhD, molecular immunologist and longevity clinician; Lawrence Kosinski, MD, gastroenterologist and value-based care leader. They discuss how AI decodes microbiome signatures before disease. Conversations cover gut–brain links, microbial metabolites like butyrate, TMAO and cardiovascular risk, effects of diet, fiber and drugs on microbiome, and clinical uses of fecal testing.
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Microbiome Changes Often Precede Symptoms
- Dysbiosis often precedes symptomatic disease across models and humans.
- Germ-free mouse transfers and longitudinal human signatures show microbiome shifts before flares or clinical onset.
Gut Microbes Link To Neurodegeneration Mechanistically
- Microbes can directly produce molecules implicated in neurodegeneration and affect barrier integrity.
- Some gut microbes make beta amyloid and alpha synuclein that may travel via the vagus nerve and weaken the blood-brain barrier.
Microbiome Converts Diet Molecules Into Cardiovascular Risk
- The microbiome is the necessary converter for diet-derived TMA into harmful TMAO linked to cardiovascular disease.
- Antibiotic suppression prevents TMAO rise after a porterhouse steak, proving microbial causation.