How many compounds can be identified?

[MDavis]

I am sure this depends on the exact protocol that is being used but I would like to know what the typical average is. I recently became very curious about the interworkings of the human body and generally trying to understand mine more for the sake of health, mainly, but how “healthy” my overall make-up is. I have read you can get a very rich understanding of chemical reactions within the body using testing like this.

[patyb]

In untargeted metabolomics you can profile hundreds to thousands of metabolites
In targeted metabolomics you can profile 1000-3000 on average but with high confidence probably less.

[MDavis]

So there is a chance of the test showing a lot of information but it is likely not to show that much? Am I understanding this correctly? Sorry, I am new to this. If there is a Metabolics For Dummies book, I should probably need to read it.

[patyb]

They do not sell Direct-to-consumer metabolomics yet, probably because the biotechnology used (LC-MS, GC-MS or NMR) is too complex and expensive for samples from a single person. But in the field of metabolomics research, a scientist can choose to run untargeted or targeted metabolomics, he can therefore choose how much information he wants with how much confidence.

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