September 13, 2022 – Many things can disrupt the health of your gut over the years. HighSugar Diet, stress, antibiotics – all linked to bad changes in gut microbiomeThe microbes that live in Intestinal tract. This can increase the risk of disease.
But what if you could erase all that damage, and restore your gut to a time when you were younger and healthier?
Scientists say it could be possible by having people take a sample of their stool when they are young to return it to the colon when they are older.
While the science to back this up isn’t there yet, some researchers say we shouldn’t wait. They claim existing stool banks to allow people to start handling stool now, so they are available for them to use if the science becomes available.
But how will that work?
First, you will go to a stool bank and provide a fresh sample of poopwhich will be screened for disease, washed, treated and deposited in a long-term storage facility.
Then, on the road, if you get a situation like inflammatory bowel diseaseheart disease or type 2 diabetes — or if you have had a procedure that wipes out your microbiome, such as a course of antibiotics or Chemotherapy Doctors can use preserved stool to “recolonize” your gut, restoring it to its previous healthy state, says Scott Weiss, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of a recent book paper on the topic. They will do this using a medical procedure called fecal germ culture, or FMT.
Timing is everything. You may want to get a sample of when you are healthy – for example, between age 18 and 35, or before the possibility of a chronic condition exists, says Weiss. But if you’re still healthy in your late 30s, 40s, or even 50s, providing a sample can still come in handy for you later in life.
If we could pull off a banking system like this, it could have the potential to treat autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease — or even reverse the effects of aging. How can we achieve this?
Stool banks today
While stool banks The samples inside are not intended for original donors but for patients hoping to cure a disease. With FMT, doctors move the fecal matter into the patient’s colon, restoring the beneficial gut microbes.
some Research It appears that FMT may help treat inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. Animal studies suggest that it can help with treatment obesityExtending the shelf life and reversing some effects agingsuch as age-related drop in brain function. else Clinical trials Looking at its potential as a Cancer treatmentWeiss says.
But outside the lab, FMT is mainly used for one purpose: treatment Clostridium difficile (C. difference)An infection caused by an overgrowth C. difference bacteria. It works better than antibiotics. Research offers.
But first you have to find a healthy donor, which is more difficult than you think.
Finding healthy stool samples
There is a bit of cruelty to the idea of FMT, but hoarding our bodily materials is nothing new. Blood banks, for example, are common throughout the United States, and cord blood banks – keep blood from BabyThe umbilical cord to help meet the child’s future medical needs – is becoming more and more common. Sperm donors are requested a lot, doctors transplant regularly the kidneys and bone marrow for patients in need.
So why are we so special about poo?
Part of the reason may be that stool (like blood, for that matter) can harbor disease – which is why it is so important to find healthy stool donors. The problem is that this can be surprisingly difficult.
To donate stool, people must go through a rigorous screening process, says Magdy Othman, MD, chief medical officer of OpenBiome, a microbiome research nonprofit.
Until recently, OpenBiome ran a stool donation program, although it has since shifted its focus to research. Potential donors were screened for diseases and Psychological health Conditions, pathogens and antibiotic resistance. The success rate was less than 3%.
“We take a very cautious approach because the link between diseases and the microbiome is still poorly understood,” Osman says.
FMT also carries risks – although so far they appear to be moderate. Mild side effects include Diarrheanausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue. (The reason is that even the healthiest stool from donors may not mix completely with your stool.)
This is where the idea of using your own stool comes in, says Yang-Yu Liu, Ph.D., a Harvard University researcher who studies the microbiome and Lead author of the above paper. It is not only more attractive, but may also be a better “match” to your body.
Should you store stool?
While researchers say we have reason to be optimistic about the future, it is important to remember that many challenges remain. FMT is in an early stage of development, and we still don’t know much about the microbiome.
There’s no guarantee, for example, that restoring a person’s microbiome to its previous disease-free state will keep diseases at bay forever, Weiss says. If your genes increase your odds of developing Crohn’s disease, for example, it’s possible for the disease to come back.
We also don’t know how long stool samples can be kept, Liu says. Fecal banks currently store stool for a year or two, not decades. to protect Proteins and DNA formulations for a long time, samples will likely need to be stored in liquid nitrogen storage temperature from -196 °C (currently, samples are stored at about -80 °C).
This raises another question: Who is going to organize all of this?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the use of FMT as a drug to treat C. difference, but as Liu points out, many gastroenterologists consider the gut microbiota to be an organ. In this case, human stool can be organized in the same way as blood, bone, or even egg cells.
Liu says a cord blood bank may be a useful model.
“We don’t have to start from scratch.”
Then there is the issue of cost. The researchers say cord blood banks could be a reference point for that, too. They charge about $1500 to $2,820 For first assembly and processing, plus annual storage fee from $185 to $370.
Despite the unknowns, one thing is certain: interest in fecal banking is real — and growing. at least One Microbiome Company, Cordlife Group LimitedHeadquartered in Singapore, it has begun allowing people to store stool for future use.
“More people should talk about it and think about it,” he says. Leo.
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