Fecal Microbiota Transplant - You Would Be Surprised At What Your Poops Can Treat

Someone asked me a question and he said would I allow someone else Poop to be inserted into my butt or would I drink a liquid that was someone else's poop before? The first, I said a straight No while the second, I mentioned that I could manage since there was a time the Bill and Melinda foundation were working on extracting clean water from feces. So I could try the second out if it has gone though the right purification but if it is still feces, then it is a straight NO. He mentioned that the only reason I am saying NO is because my life doesn't depend on it, and it does, I will be so elated to have a Fecal Microbiota Transplant. So would you drink it or have it inserted into your butts?

Fecal Microbiota Transplant is usually associated with Ulcerative Colitis which is a gut problem that has to do with ulcer (wounds/sore) or inflammation in the colon and rectum, and the feces are inserted through the anus to the rectum to help improve the gut micobiome but this isn't the only condition that requires Fecal Microbiota Transplant. Contrary to what you may think, there are other cases that would require inserting feces into your gut or swallowing liquid from poops, and one of such is the liver.

wikimedia: British toilet

We know the liver is the cleaner and detoxifier in the body which means that it is very important for our lives but when the liver goes bad, not treating it can be a straight train to heavens gate. The majority of people with liver disease are usually people who drink alcohol and this is because alcohol affects the Gut-Liver axis which are veins of two way communication that take bacteria from the intestines to the liver as well as transports acids and antibodies from the liver to the intestines. With this, it means that the liver and the guts have a close relationship.

When you enjoy taking more than 12 bottles of alcohol, and your friend nickname you the alcohol brewery, just as you smile, remember that people who take excessive alcohol experiences changes in the microbiota of their gut which affects the balance of having a diverse microbiota. Continuous intake of those bottle alcohol would cause an increase in the microbes responsible for taking care of alcohol more than other microbiota leading to Alcoholic Hepatitis leading to Alcohol Use Disorder. When this happens, the gut bacteria in them is similar to that of a person suffering from endotoxemia.

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According to a study, people with Alcoholic Hepatitis possess a different microbiome compared to other people who consume alcohol moderately. Also, it has been shown that fecal transplant is a good way to help with the condition as new microbiomes are introduced into the gut to make the gut bacteria better, and as such treating the liver disease. This type of treatment is shown to be better than using steroids or nutrition treatments. In a study in 2018, when good bacteria was used to replace the harmful ones, participants produced fewer endotoxins and these allowed their body to repair the damage it had caused to the liver.

Would you agree with me if I tell you that fecal transplant is great in dealing with allergies. An Allergy is your body responding terribly to things that shouldn't kill you in a way that it shouldn't like your body reacting to peanut. Science has shown that part of the immune system are controlled by gut bacteria which means that with good gut bacteria, one is protected against allergies.

needpix: Petr Kratochvil

Researches have been done to compared the gut microbiomes of people with and without allergies and they have shown that they are different with certain microbes present in non-allergic people while not present in allergic people. In other to be able to get a variety of microbiome into the gut, fecal transplant is used. There has been a successful clinical trial of fecal transplant to help treat allergies but the result is yet to be published, so we hope to see more clinical trials to be performed and if they are successful, I can't wait to see people talk about having a fecal transplant for their allergies on their social media handles, it will be fun to see their reaction even when they are grateful.

There are a lot of problems that transferring feces into the gut of people can solve including multiple sclerosis since gut bacteria control the brain to a reasonable extent. Research is still being done on this and we hope it solves this problem. Scientists are also to Poop with fecal transplant to treat Parkinson's disease, and Autism Spectrum disorder. There are still a lot of studies where poop is looked at for treatment so when next you are going to the loo, remember that the waste you are releasing might be able to save a lot of lives in the future.

For Further Reading

^{https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpgi.00380.2011
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12664-018-0859-4
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8560686/#s3
https://journals.lww.com/hep/abstract/2021/05000
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6118182/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303846721003206
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6408964/
https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.26069
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822
https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/mmr.2024.13375
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7810484/
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674
https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02960074?tab=table#outcome-measures
https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05695261
https://journals.lww.com/ajg/fulltext/2011/10002/fecal_microbiota_transplantation__fmt__in_multiple.942.aspx}