Why might Candida results differ between the basic Gut Health Test and a qPCR Candida Add-on?

Fungal Cell Wall Resistance: Fungal DNA extraction requires specialized lysis methods. Standard shotgun extraction protocols prioritize bacterial and total microbial sequencing efficiency.

Low Fungal Biomass: Fungi typically make up less than 0.1% of the total gut microbiome (the "mycobiome"). In a broad shotgun sequencing run, high-abundance bacteria can easily outcompete low-level fungal DNA for sequencing reads.

Targeted qPCR Amplification: A dedicated qPCR add-on specifically targets and amplifies fungal DNA primers, allowing detection of trace amounts of Candida that fall well below the shotgun sequencing detection limit.