Unseen Bio and Embla: Bowel test - An important tool for lasting weight loss

"If we find a piece of the puzzle that no one has thought of before, it could make a huge difference." – Nicholas Syhler, physician and co-founder of Embla.

Weight loss and lifestyle changes can often be a big challenge, “what should I do”, “why isn’t anything happening”, “how can I maintain my weight loss?” are questions that can fill such a process. Because weight loss is much more than just fewer calories or the use of popular weight loss medications. At least according to the weight loss clinic Embla.

Embla has a more holistic approach to weight loss and believes that you should look at the body as a large garden with lots of diversity in the form of different flowers and plants, and where it is not enough to just water and fertilize a little. "The body is a complex system. It is not just one tool we need to use, we need to use many different tools depending on what your garden is like, and that is why the collaboration with Unseen Bio is interesting," says co-founder Nicholas Syhler.

Embla is a digital weight loss clinic that combines ACT-based coaching with medical support to create lasting lifestyle changes for their members. Robin Petersen, a health coach at Embla, describes her role as a combination of habit building, relationship work and holistic strategies: "It's not about going on a diet and suffering along the way. It's about finding methods that harmonize with the individual." 

It was precisely because of Embla's comprehensive and holistic approach to weight loss that interest in the microbiome arose and that was the reason they became a Health Partner with Unseen Bio. Embla saw a number of challenges in relation to the complex work with severe obesity and weight loss medication, where there were a lot of unknowns, and here the microbiome came in as a possible piece of the puzzle. Certain gut hormones signal feelings of satiety, and with a microbiome test, this can be investigated further by mapping the members' gut flora.

An insight that provides greater understanding

With Unseen Bio's microbiome tests, Embla gains insight into the members' gut flora. The tests are performed before the start of treatment and at selected times during the course, which allows for the observation of changes in the gut flora and potentially explains individual differences in treatment outcomes. Robin Petersen sees it as a tool to understand complex factors such as epigenetics (simplified - how your genes can be influenced and changed by external circumstances) and lifestyle: "It can give us more wild cards in the work with both weight loss and general health."

But it's not just Embla who gains insight, the members also gain insight and thus a greater understanding of how their diet and lifestyle affect their body physiologically, and this can often be a good help for Embla to support their coaching. Nicholas Syhler explains, "It's about seeing the body as a system – not just a machine. With microbiome data, we get a new tool to understand this system better."

For Embla, the collaboration with Unseen Bio has opened up new perspectives on weight loss treatment. Microbiome tests provide insight into both external factors such as environmental impact and internal factors such as the diversity of the intestinal flora. This creates the possibility of more tailored solutions for members. "If we can map the importance of the microbiome, we may be able to find causal explanations for the challenges we see – and thus help members even better," says Robin Petersen.

The collaboration between Embla and Unseen Bio demonstrates the potential of combining holistic treatment with advanced research into the microbiome. For Embla, this means new opportunities to optimize their treatment offerings, while members gain access to tailored solutions based on both technology and science. As Robin Petersen says: "It's about creating lasting change – not just focusing on weight."

Written by Linda Nygaard