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This Poop 'Cure' May Have Unintended Long-Term Effects, Study Finds
Faecal microbial transplants (FMT), which involve transferring stool samples from a healthy gut to someone else's colon, have yielded some impressive medical results in the past.
Researchers have seen promising signs of its ability to address irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, and even early Parkinson's (though this benefit only seemed to be short-lived) and other neurological issues.
It has a 90% success rate for treating a bacterium related to diarrhoea, the BBC reported.
But a new study published in the journal Cells has raised questions about the long-term safety of FMT treatments, suggesting that a bacterial 'mismatch' may cause problems with the patient's immune system and metabolism down the line.
The scientists only found the link in mice and were not able to say how the changes they witnessed in the animals might manifest in people.
They gave antibiotics to mice to interrupt their gut's normal microbiome, and then treated them with FMT and monitored them for one to three months.
Often, the researchers discovered, the gut bacteria ended up in the wrong part of the gut – 'regional mismatches' – that seemed to disrupt the gut.
After taking biopsies of the liver and gut, the scientists found that some genes, especially those related to the immune system and metabolism, had changed.
Speaking to the University of Chicago, the study's lead author, researcher Orlando 'Landon' DeLeon said: 'I think it's a bit of a wake-up call to the field that maybe we shouldn't willy-nilly put large bowel microbes into different parts of the intestine that shouldn't be there.
'There are microbes along the entire intestinal tract, and we just study predominantly the last third of it (the colon),' he added. 'So how can you expect an FMT, with microbes from a third of the intestinal tract at the end of it, to fix the rest of the intestine?'
No. This study was done on mice, which have different anatomies from us; even though the scientists found genetic changes in the liver and gut, they are not sure yet how those changes might affect even the mouse, never mind us.
The study's researchers, however, still think it's a good idea to pursue 'omni-microbial transplants,' or OMT, writing in their paper: 'regional microbial mismatches after FMTs can lead to unintended consequences and require rethinking of microbiome-based interventions.'
OMTs would include more bacteria from a greater area of the gut, theoretically increasing the likelihood that the correct ones will go to the right spot.
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