Targeted interventions directed at reducing the levels of circulating succinate in a subject, and kits and method for determining effectiveness of said interventions

A kit comprising reagents suitable for determining the ratio of succinate-producing bacteria to succinate-consuming bacteria in a stool sample from a subject,

• wherein the kit comprises primer sets designed to specifically hybridize the hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene in at least one succinate-producing bacterium and in at least one succinate-consuming bacterium, or
• wherein the kit comprises probes that specifically hybridize to the hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene in at least one succinate-producing bacterium and in at least one succinate-consuming bacterium,
• and wherein the primer sets or the probes comprise at least 10% of the total amount of reagents forming the kit.

A probiotic product comprising an effective amount of succinate consuming bacteria, wherein the succinate consuming bacteria is selected from the group consisting of Odoribacter spp, Phascolarctobacterium spp, Ruminococcus spp, and combinations thereof.