Fig. 1

Comparison of univariate blood and microbiome tests with the multivariate CLOUD test. a, b In contrast to a univariate blood panel, in which healthy ranges for individual metabolites are well defined, the normal ranges for individual bacterial species in the human microbiome are too wide to be meaningful, with many taxa being completely absent from some individuals’ guts and dominating other individuals’ guts. c, d In contrast, CLOUD uses a high-dimensional representation of the whole microbiome profile to define the normal range of healthy microbiomes