Is there a new health trend in town? Researchers found that a so-called probiotic cocktail derived from baby poop is actually beneficial to gut health.
Baby Poop Cocktail
Scientists at the Wake Forest School of Medicine collected fecal samples from 34 healthy infants and selected 10 out of 321 analyzed Lactobacillus and Enterococcus strains to be tested for their ability to change gut microbiome.
One might ask why the researchers did such a thing, and it is because in the last decade or so, probiotics have been found to be effective in preventing or even treating certain diseases in both animal and human models. And since infants are still quite healthy and do not experience age-related diseases such as cancer and diabetes, probiotics from their fecal matter are excellent candidates to determine how human-origin probiotics can affect the gut microbiome.
To test this, the researchers gave a single dose and five consecutive doses of the probiotic cocktail into mice, and also injected the same doses in human feces sample. Amazingly, the researchers found that the probiotic cocktail in both single and five doses increased the body’s ability to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), a very important component of good gut health in both the mouse gut and the human feces.
“People with diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders and cancers frequently have fewer short-chain fatty acids. Increasing them may be helpful in maintaining or even restoring a normal gut environment, and hopefully, improving health,” said study lead Hariom Yadav Ph.D.
The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Feces For Good Health
According to researchers, the results of the current study show how human-origin probiotics may be beneficial for use in therapeutic regimens for individuals who have conditions that are associated with an imbalance in gut microbiome.
This is not the first time that researchers found the health benefits of fecal matter. In fact, for a while now, some people have engaged in fecal transplant or bacteriotherapy. This is the process in which microbes from the fecal matter of healthy donor are introduced into the gastrointestinal tract of a patient.
By 2013, the procedure was mostly done in patients suffering from recurrent C. difficile colitis, but recent research has found potentials for the procedure to help treat other gastrointestinal issues. For instance, recent research found that fecal transplants may help treat gastrointestinal problems among children with autism, while other research are also looking into the possibility of treating irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease with the procedure.
