Understanding your results
Your report turns the levels of sixteen oral organisms into five scores. Here is what each one measures, why it is built the way it is, and what it can — and can't — tell you.
Most oral tests hand you a list of bacteria and leave the interpreting to you. We do the opposite. We measure the organisms, then translate the pattern into scores you can actually read. The number is the easy part — the meaning behind it is the point.
A few things hold true across the whole report. Detection is measured by qPCR, the same molecular method used in clinical labs. Very low background detections are treated as noise, not signal. And every score is built so the direction is consistent — once you know whether higher or lower is the goal, you can read the rest at a glance.
Oral Balance Score
0–100 · Higher is betterThe Oral Balance Score is a single index, from zero to one hundred, that reflects how balanced your oral microbiome looks as a whole. It folds together the protective side of your microbiome, the disruptive side, and your nitric oxide capacity into one figure.
It is built so a higher score always means a more balanced, healthier-looking community. A lower score points toward imbalance — more disruptive organisms, fewer protective ones, or both. The score also applies small deductions for specific organism combinations that research associates with greater risk than their individual levels would suggest, so the number reflects pattern, not just headcount.
Where your number lands is described with a plain label and color:
Protective Capacity
0–100 · Higher is betterA healthy mouth is not just a mouth without bad bacteria — it is a mouth with enough good ones. Protective Capacity measures the strength of the beneficial organisms that keep your oral community stable and crowd out the disruptive ones.
It combines two things: how abundant your protective commensal bacteria are, and how much functional nitric oxide capacity your microbiome has. The score weights the nitric oxide side more heavily, because that functional capacity is harder to rebuild and matters across the body, not just the mouth.
When this score is low, your mouth has less of its own defense — which is part of why the same level of disruptive bacteria affects two people differently.
What goes into it
Disruptive Pressure
0–100 · Lower is betterThis is the one score where you want a low number. Disruptive Pressure measures the combined burden of the organisms associated with periodontal disease, cavities, and fungal overgrowth. A zero means none of those organisms were detected at meaningful levels.
Not every disruptive organism carries the same weight. The most aggressive periodontal species count more heavily than the others, because research associates them with more tissue breakdown. Cavity-causing and fungal organisms are included but weighted somewhat lower, reflecting their different roles.
Pairing this with Protective Capacity is the heart of the report — pressure on one side, defense on the other.
What goes into it
Nitric Oxide System
0–100 · Higher is betterCertain bacteria in your mouth do something most people never learn about: they help turn the nitrate in leafy greens and beets into nitric oxide, a molecule your body uses for healthy blood flow and circulation. The conversion starts in the mouth. Without the right bacteria, the pathway stalls before your body can finish it.
Here is what makes our measurement different. We don't just check whether nitrate-reducing species are present — we target the narG gene that performs the conversion. Detecting that gene tells us the capability is actually there, not just that a related organism happens to be present. That is why we can describe this as functional capacity rather than a simple count.
The systemic links here are associations reported in research, not conclusions about any individual. What your score reflects is the oral step of the pathway:
Periodontal Risk Score
1–5 · Pattern-basedGum disease is rarely the work of one bug. It is driven by combinations — particular organisms that become far more destructive together than they are alone. So this score works differently from the others. Instead of adding up levels, it identifies which microbial pattern your sample matches and assigns a one-to-five rating based on that.
A single low-level organism reads as early and mild. Known high-risk pairings read higher, even at modest levels, because the combination is what matters. Your report names the specific pattern it found, so the number always comes with an explanation.
Caries risk is reported separately, since cavities and gum disease are different processes that call for different responses.
How the scores fit together
The Oral Balance Score isn't a separate measurement — it's a synthesis. At its simplest, it weighs your protective side against your disruptive side, then adjusts for the specific organism patterns research flags as higher-risk.
Capacityyour defense − Disruptive
Pressurethe burden on it → Oral Balance
Scoreyour headline number
The Nitric Oxide System score feeds into Protective Capacity. The Periodontal Risk Score stands on its own, because its pattern-based logic answers a different question than the balance index does.
What this report does not tell you
We would rather you trust the report for what it is than oversell what it isn't. So here is the honest boundary around your results.
It is not a diagnosis
The Balance Test measures your oral microbiome. It does not diagnose gum disease, cavities, or any medical condition. That is a clinical judgment your provider makes, with your results as one input among several.
It does not predict the future
Your scores describe your microbiome at one point in time. They are associated in research with certain risks — they do not forecast what will happen to you specifically.
It is a snapshot, not a verdict
The oral microbiome changes. A single result is a starting point. Its real value shows up when you measure again and watch the direction of travel.
It is a laboratory-developed test
The Balance Test is validated under CLIA and is intended for adjunctive use — to support clinical evaluation, not replace it. It has not been cleared or approved by the FDA, which is not currently required for tests of this type.
What to do with your results
A measurement is only useful if it leads somewhere. Read your scores, then bring them into a conversation with your dental or medical provider, who can interpret them alongside what they see in your mouth and know about your history. If your report flags areas to focus on, that is where to start.
And when you are ready to see whether things are moving in the right direction, testing again gives you the one thing a single result never can: a trend.