Nutrition plays a pivotal role in depression, but dietary interventions are usually not personalized and do not consider patients’ microbial and human molecular functions. This preliminary study evaluated the effectiveness of precision supplements (PS) on depression symptoms as part of a personalized nutrition subscription plan that accounts for the gene expression activity of the microbiome and the human host. People with depression, 86 taking PS and 45 controls responded to the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) at two time points an average of ∼6 months apart. Categorical changes were evaluated using the PHQ-9 score system, and clinically significant categorical differences were observed between the two groups (effect size = 0.48; p <0.001). The difference in differences was calculated using multiple group propensity score weighting adjusting for age, sex, BMI, and physical activity, and the PHQ-9 score decreased by ∼4 points (∼29%) for the intervention group (t0: 13.75+-3.80, t1: 9.78+-6.42) vs Controls (t0: 14.07+-3.64, t1: 13.59 +-6.65). Thus, precision supplement use over ∼6 months significantly reduced depression symptoms, with 69.8% of the individuals in the intervention group improving their category to no/low depression vs. 15.6% in the control group.

Several authors (CJ, NS, MM, LH, VG, AG, EP, GA, MV, and GB) are employees and own stock of Viome Life Sciences, Inc. UN is a member of the Viome Scientific advisory board.

The study was funded by Viome Life Sciences.

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Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The Ethics committee of Viome Life Sciences Inc waived the ethical approval for this work. Please see a detailed statement in the paper.

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Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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The data used in this study, beyond what has been summarized in this paper, cannot be shared publicly due to privacy and legal reasons. Researchers requiring more data for non-commercial purposes can request more data via our data access website: https://www.viomelifesciences.com/data-access. Upon review, Viome may provide access to more summary statistics through a Data Transfer Agreement that protects the privacy of our participants' data.