What is a fecal transplant and could it cure obesity?

Great News - the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved the first fecal transplant therapy!

Wait, what!?

Yes, fecal as in feces, the boring scientific word for poop, the word that the whole world understands. In today’s blog post, poop is signified by a picture of the frog sitting on a toilet and scrolling on his phone. Which, by the way, you should avoid - especially if you have hemorrhoids.

So where was I? Oh yeah - what exactly is a fecal transplant?

It involves a process where a medical professional takes feces poop from a healthy person, ‘cleans it up’ (don’t ask), and puts it into a person with an illness - using a turkey baster. I’m kidding, I made up the turkey baster part. Please don’t try this at home.

In this case, the transplant is approved to treat a Clostridium difficile (a species of bacteria) overgrowth which can cause something we nerdy kids call C. diff colitis. This can happen after taking antibiotics that change the bacteria, (also known as the microbiome) in the gut. This is another great reason that antibiotics should only be used if absolutely needed.

C. diff colitis is an inflammation of the colon with diarrhea so severe that it kills 15,000-30,000 people in the US each year. Sometimes it can be treated with antibiotics - yes it is ironic that antibiotics are needed to treat an infection that was originally caused by uhm… antibiotics. But sometimes these drugs don’t work and a stool transplant restores a healthy balance to the microbiome, halting diarrhea.

This is great news - it is always good to have another tool to save lives, no matter how icky (another highly scientific word) it may sound. But the most interesting part is that this may only be the first medical condition that we treat with a fecal transplant. There are a host of other conditions that may benefit from improving gut bacteria.

An imbalanced or abnormal microbiome is thought to contribute to chronic human diseases including anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer. Balancing the microbiome may even treat a condition near and dear to my heart - obesity.

That’s right, the right microbiome could help you to lose weight. In some experiments with mice, when the microbiome was improved in overweight mice, they lost weight, even though their diets were not changed. In other words, they were able to have their cake pellet and eat it too.

I know, right!?

So do we finally have a cure for obesity!?

Unfortunately, no. Fecal transplantation for weight loss has not been found to work in humans yet. And even when researchers figure out how to make it work, it would be one part of an overall treatment plan. A single type of therapy is unlikely to cure a complex condition like obesity, regardless of what Dr. Oz says.

So, what can we take away from all this?

• A microbiome with many different species of bacteria is generally considered healthy. So eat as many different types of whole foods as possible to expand your microbiome naturally.

• Avoid processed and ultra-processed (because ‘super-duper processed’ is just too long of a term) foods as they can affect the microbiome negatively.

• Consider eating more yogurt (preferably plain with added fresh fruit rather than processed fruit yogurts) which contains a lot of ‘healthy’ bacteria.

• Ask your doctor if you absolutely need an antibiotic before taking one.

• If you do need an antibiotic, take an over-the-counter probiotic with it to help to keep your microbiome healthy.

Currently, there is a lot of research being conducted (scientists in white coats are eagerly examining poop as we speak) and one day we may be able to take a supplement to prevent or treat various medical conditions.

For weight loss and general wellness, this will be a great way to augment a healthy lifestyle consisting of lots of movement and fewer processed foods. Beats getting a fecal transplant. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.