Driven by a fascination with bacteria, microbiologist Julie Kopczyńska has trawled through existing research on the gut microbiome and created an easy-to-use gut health calculator. She says it's a good way to keep tabs on health and well-being.
If you haven’t heard about the gut microbiome and its impact on health, you might have been living under a rock for the last couple of years. There’s absolutely no judgment in that statement; it’s just that ‘microbiome’ has become a catch-cry of the research world – for good reason.
Armed with her own (and other peoples’) research, Julia Kopczyńska – a microbiologist with a self-professed long-term fascination with the gut microbiome – has distilled a mountain of scientific esoterica into a practical tool that anyone can use to assess their health: the Gut Microbiome Score Calculator.
“My fascination with the human gut microbiome started during my undergraduate studies in microbiology,” Kopczyńska explained in an exclusive interview with New Atlas. “The more I learned, the more I realized how much our gut affects almost every aspect of our health. It also made me more mindful of how our daily habits shape the health of our microbiome.
“I began making small changes to my diet and lifestyle to support my gut and overall well-being. Seeing the positive changes over time inspired me to help others take charge of their health, too. This passion led to my PhD research, where I am focusing on developing new strategies to identify and deliver effective probiotics to improve health and well-being.”
The real-life application of her years of study and her personal experiments culminated in Kopczyńska creating the calculator and making it accessible to as many people as possible.
“It’s clear that there’s a huge interest in the topic – but also how overwhelming all the information out there can be,” she said. “While general tips are available, they often end up being too vague or hard to apply for someone with a scientific background. That’s where the Gut Microbiome Score Calculator comes in. As the name suggests, it provides an indicative score to give a general sense of how well certain gut-friendly habits are being followed. But more importantly, it offers a detailed breakdown of each habit – highlighting what’s being done well, what might be missing, and what could be improved.”
Given the breadth of published research available, Kopczyńska said that developing the calculator wasn't easy. But she wants to assure users that it’s based on scientific evidence.
“I wish there would have been a formula I could use to base this calculator on, but as usual with this topic, it was just a lot of information to sift through,” she said. “However, I started noticing consistent patterns across different studies, which helped me create a scoring system that logically ranks the impact of each habit and how strongly it influences gut health. Sure, it’s not per se a scientific formula, but it’s all based on solid research.”
The Gut Microbiome Score Calculator is available on the Omni Calculator website. It’s one of hundreds of free calculators covering topics as diverse as biology, finance, construction, math, health, ecology, and sports. To the left of the Microbiome Calculator is an easy-to-comprehend explanation of what the gut microbiome is and what it does. There’s a section on how an imbalance between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ gut bacteria contributes to illness, as well as a section on how lifestyle choices affect the composition of our microbiome.
The calculator is easy to use and prompts the user to enter information about these lifestyle factors, mostly by selecting from a dropdown menu, before calculating a score out of 100. Kopczyńska is quick to emphasize that the score – and, indeed, the process of arriving at that score – is not meant to shame or ridicule people but to encourage them.
“The goal isn’t to achieve a perfect score,” Kopczyńska told New Atlas. “We’re human, and our bodies are resilient enough to handle imperfection. Instead, this tool is designed to encourage the gradual development of healthier habits – ones that, over time, can significantly benefit our well-being. It’s meant to guide, not judge, helping users take meaningful, realistic steps toward better gut health and long-term disease prevention.
“Even if you’re not dealing with any specific health issues, the best thing you can do for yourself is to focus on prevention. It’s perfectly fine to have the occasional ‘unhealthy’ treat, but it’s the small, everyday habits that accumulate over time, subtly impacting your health on a micro level. These habits can gradually elevate your risk of developing serious conditions down the road, such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, or Alzheimer’s, which are often challenging to treat once they’ve taken hold.”
Kopczyńska hopes that the Gut Microbiome Score Calculator will assist health practitioners and dieticians in providing patient care and will be used by those who want to take an active role in improving their health.
“Don’t stress about trying to change everything at once – take it one step at a time,” Kopczyńska said, offering a final bit of encouragement. “After you’ve successfully adopted a habit, you can revisit the calculator and take the test again to explore a new health challenge. Be realistic, but stay positive. By making mindful choices, the benefits you’ll gain will far outweigh any sacrifices along the way.”
For those who are wondering, yes, Kopczyńska is definitely qualified to develop a calculator that assesses the health of the gut microbiome. After completing a bachelor’s degree in microbiology at the University of Wrocław, Poland, she attended Maastricht University in the Netherlands and completed a Master of Biomedical Sciences.
Since then, Kopczyńska’s research has been published, and she has presented it at multiple conferences. She’s committed to inspiring young people to pursue a career in science and mentors bachelor’s and master’s students. Currently, Kopczyńska is working towards her PhD through the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Polish Academy of Sciences.