The battle against obesity could soon gain a new ally: poop pills. Scientists are now ready to test the "poop pills" in human participants.
Fecal matters from healthy, slim donors are contained in the "freeze-dried" capsules. The goal is to replace an obese person's intestinal microbes with healthy ones.
Past animal lab tests showed mice implanted with gut microbes from a slim donor remained slim compared to mice implanted with gut microbe from an obese donor. The two sets of mice were given the same diet but the mice with the obese microbes became plumper. Several anecdotal evidence in humans proved that the process works.
Pop A Poop Pill
In the human study, 20 obese participants will take a weekly capsule in six weeks. Each capsule contains few grams of freeze-dried stool from a slim donor.
No changes will be made in terms of lifestyle. The participants will continue their current exercise habits and diet.
Researchers will monitor the weight and health data of the participants during the third, sixth and 12th month. The study can go on longer depending on the initial findings.
The bizarre trial run will be led by Massachusetts General Hospital's clinical researcher and assistant professor Elaine Yu who emphasized the extreme attention given in the selection of fecal donors.
These slim and healthy fecal donors are screened for metabolic disorders, infection and other health-related complications. The team is currently in the fecal selection process. The human trial runs are set later this year.
Yu cautioned that the research is still in its early stages and it's too early to make predictions. But the team hopes that microbe therapy could soon accompany dietary interventions to cure metabolic illnesses and help fight obesity. The microbe-swap trial is attempting, for the first time, to show that microbes can aid in weight management.
"We can do all of the detail-oriented work to try to figure out which microbial communities are being affected to give more information for targeted treatments in the future," said Yu.
Poop Against Obesity
The 2013 study involving mice was conducted by Washington University's Jeffrey Gordon. The findings suggested that it is possible to prevent obesity using the relationship between gut microbes.
In a 2014 study, scientists from the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota found obesity can also be influenced by genetic strains of gut microbiotas.
