I don't think culture based tests give any idea of what is really going on with gut bacteria.
They can detect only aerotolerant organisms which are readily culturable. These are only minor gut constituents (less than 10%).
As a result, such tests distort our notions of what is and isn't important. For example, these tests always make much of
E. coli and tell us we have too much or too little. In reality,
E.coli is a very minor constituent of the gut (typically <0.1%) with no special role that I am aware of.
The much vaunted
Lactobacillus is also normally a minor constituent in the bowel and plays no known role there. It is important in the mouth, vagina and possibly small intestine, but not in the bowel. Much of what is found in the bowel is transiting through.
So frankly I certainly wouldn't be worrying about so-called low
E. coli and there's nothing else much of obvious concern (ie no clearly pathogenic species which these types of tests often can pick up).
Low bifido on this test might mean something or maybe not. It wouldn't hurt to try prebiotic supplements which can boost bifido - eg raw potato starch, inulin, GOS.
As for the
Candida, as
@Hip says, this is a very murky area which, apart from disseminated candidosis in immunocompromised patients, consists of a lot of claims and very little validation.
Candida is a normal gut constituent and according to this test, your levels are only a little elevated. Whether this is a problem is difficult to say.
There are tests for anti-candida antibodies which are used to help diagnose disseminated candidosis, but whether the test you had is a reliable version of these antibody tests I don't know.
Only you can decide whether to act on the basis of these tests, but personally I'd be wanting more evidence before I embarked on antifungal drugs. Even Nystatin, which stays in the gut and so doesn't cause systemic problems, is not without difficulty. It works by punching holes in fungal cells. Fungi are eukaryotes, just like us, so it can affect cells lining our gut also.
Do you have any symptoms that could clearly be attributed to candida overgrowth in the gut? For example, I once have a gut test which showed high levels of Candida. I also had serious perianal itch and inflammation and in those circumstances I was willing to take a course of Nystatin (which cleared up the problem).
