Fecal Transplants

As I was sitting in the waiting room at my doctor's office waiting to be called in for lab tests, I picked up a copy of a magazine called Genome which, as it's name implies, is about genome research, and read an article entitled, "Change Your Microbiome, Change Yourself."

The article discusses some things that I was aware of, some of which were probably at the heart with recent changes in the recommendations on using antibacterial soaps and lotions, largely that we are ridding our bodies of the beneficial bacteria that we need to fight infections and to survive.

You will be pleased to know that your body is home to something like one hundred trillion microscopic bugs representing more than a thousand different species, the total of which may weigh in the neighborhood of 2.5 pounds.

It's an interesting article, and not one that I found to be counterintuitive. It has been long known that kids who are raised on a farm, who walk barefoot through a barnyard filled with all sorts of creatures, large and small, tend to have much stronger immune systems than those who are raised to avoid germs at all costs.

I grew up on a farm in a rural community and, while I had a friend who shot his hand off with a shotgun, I never knew anyone who had an allergy. Although pretty much everyone's mother admonished their children to wash their hands before eating, most of us didn't actually do that before every meal. Rarely, did anyone encounter a disease that required a doctor. Our cows and our horses saw veterinarians more often than we saw pediatricians. I don't think I ever saw a doctor as a child.

Anyhow, the article explains why these observations were probably true.

Then it gets into an area that makes sense, I suppose, but which isn't quite so palatable. The author speaks of a study into the benefits of fecal transplants in patients suffering from specific bacterial infections, comparing the results from fecal transplants with the standard antibiotic routine.

The study had to be stopped early because they could not justify continuing to treat patients with antibiotics after the results from fecal transplants showed 81% resolution of symptoms in patients after a single fecal infusion, while the antibiotic was giving patients only a 30% chance of recovery.

A fecal transplant involves infusing patients with a slurry of fecal matter taken from healthy people, delivered either to the intestine by enema or the stomach through a nasogastric tube.

Initial studies are also indicating that children with Crohn's disease are put into remission through fecal transplants.

Thankfully, when and if this becomes a standard treatment regimen, it will have been refined to a pill or a capsule format rather than an literal infusion of fecal matter.

Have you had lunch yet?