If only all poop looked this delish, this research would be a lot easier to take seriously! (P.S. These are real cookies. There’s a recipe and everything! They’re way too complicated for me to attempt but my birthday’s in June so y’all have some time to sort it out;))
Poop: It’s what’s for dinner! Oh, I’m serious. It’s the latest craze among those on the cutting-edge of health as scientists seek new and better ways to help people lose weight. And while other fads have gone the way of the dung heap (hah! I’ve been saving that one up for a week now. You’re welcome.), this one seems to have at least as much staying power as one of your uncle’s post-Thanksgiving bathroom bonanzas. Thanks to some pretty solid science calling someone a “poopy face” – as my kids are wont to do – may soon be the ultimate compliment!
In an experiment the NY Times calls “novel” (code for “who in the name of Schrodinger conceived this?!”), researchers from the venerable Harvard Medical School demonstrated the effects of gut bacteria on a person’s weight. First the intrepid scientists found a bunch of pairs of identical twins. So far, pretty normal – every good research study starts out with boxes full of identical twins. (Seriously, if you’re an identical twin who was raised separately from your twin then you’re basically worth your weight in gold to scientists. Not that they’d steal your body. Well they might. But it would be in the name of SCIENCE.) Then the researchers narrowed down the twins to pairs where one twin was thin and the other was obese.
Next they extracted the gut bacteria from each twin. The article did not say how this happened but – lucky for you! – I have done this and so can tell you. It involves pooping in sterile plastic bags inside ice cream buckets. You then put the bucket o’ crap in your car (and pray the day isn’t warm) to take back to the lab. Which, if you’re me, means that you forget about the poop bucket until you give your sister a ride and she asks why your car reeks like dirty diapers. (I’m sorry Laura!!) And then (if you’re still me) you fabricate an elaborate lie which makes far less sense than just telling her you’re saving stool samples for science. ANYHOW. The Harvard scientists – who officially now have the worst job in the world – took the twin poop and got the bacteria out of it.
Enter the mice. No good research study happens without mice! Yes, the researchers took the human poop and implanted it in the guts of mice specifically bred to have totally sterile guts. What happened? “The mice with bacteria from fat twins grew fat [to the tune of 15%-17% more fat!]; those that got bacteria from lean twins stayed lean.” Then, just to see how robust this bacteria was, they exchanged fecal matter between the mice. The article does say how this happened – lucky for you! – and it involves feeding the mice each other’s poop. Apparently it didn’t even take much coaxing as mice love eating poop.
And the results were pretty amazing, even by poo-eating mouse standards: ” The investigators discovered that given a chance, and in the presence of a low-fat diet, bacteria from a lean twin will take over the gut of a mouse that already had bacteria from a fat twin. The fat mouse then loses weight. But the opposite does not happen. No matter what the diet, bacteria from a fat mouse do not take over in a mouse that is thin.” Talk about a win-win! And the thin mice apparently didn’t even lose weight from Cholera! It was the coveted thin gut bacteria.
But, before you go scavenging in the port-a-potties at a cheerleading camp, it turns out this magical weight loss only worked if – wait for it – the mice were eating healthy chow. The mice made obese by the fattening bacteria lost weight when they got the skinny bacteria if they ate regular low-fat mouse food. However, if the obese mice ate the mouse equivalent of junk food (anyone else having visions of Templeton from Charlotte’s Web?) then the skinny bacteria could not take root and there was no weight loss.
This all was so groundbreaking that scientists got super excited in that weird geeky way that people who spend long hours in labs talking to mice often do. (And I say that, with much affection, as a person who once spent a year working in a lab, talking to mice.)
“This is all weird and wonderful!” enthused Robert Karp, a program director for genetics and genomics at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
“I’m very excited about this,” added Michael Fischbach of the University of California, San Francisco, saying the next step will inevitably be to try using gut bacteria to treat obesity by transplanting feces from thin people. “I have little doubt that that will be the next thing that happens!”
I love Drs. Karp and Fischbach so hard right now. Not only are they super excited but they are super excited about poop! THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.
And lest you think their enthusiasm only extends to the bespectacled set, of course “fecal transplants” in humans are already happening. We’re talking about miracle weight loss (well except for that whole eat-healthy-food buzzkill)! Of course it has started. First: it should be known that fecal transplants to cure severe gut diseases and disorders have actually been a thing for awhile now. Doctors have been using “extracted gut bacteria” (read: plain ol’ poop) from healthy people to repopulate the guts of people suffering from things like Crohn’s disease and antibiotic-resistant C. difficile. It works so well that in the latter group, over 95% of patients were cured from a bacteria that currently has no known drug treatment – with poo! And the results for inflammatory bowel disease, as described by both patients and doctors, are nothing short of miraculous. There’s even an entire website, The Power of Poo, devoted to helping match people up for fecal transplants. It has DIY tips. I KNOW.
Even better, doctors consider these types of fecal transplants extremely safe. The American College of Gastroenterology writes in their C. difficile treatment guidelines that “no adverse effects or complications directly attributable to the procedure have yet been described in the literature.” Which frankly is good news for me since all of my children have, at one time or another, eaten their own or one of their siblings’ brown betties. (Don’t ask. If you’re a parent you likely already know how this happens and if you’re not a parent I don’t want to scare you away from ever having children.)
However, the FDA has recently imposed tight regulations on the procedure. At first glance this seems wise – especially after this most recent weight -loss connection. You don’t want “health spas” suddenly serving up butt brownies for dessert, right? But most experts say this regulation will actually stymie the growth of a very promising treatment and drive it underground. (What? However would a gigantic government entity hold research back?!). Bummer.
So where does this leave the poor, overly enthused researchers? There are lots and lots of questions yet to be answered about fecal transplants, writes Beth Skwarecki for the PLoS blog.
“We’re just coming to grips with the gut microbiome’s impact on health and disease, and we know so little about what is actually in that magical brown pellet (which is about 55% bacteria, in case you were wondering.) Does a donor have to be matched to the patient, or is any healthy stool good enough? Do some patients respond to the treatment and others don’t – maybe in a predictable way? Does the sample need to be fresh, and if not, what is the best way to store it? Can poop be replaced entirely by a synthetic, probiotic concoction? Are there legions of failed FMT patients who are too disappointed, or embarrassed, to publish negative results?”
I’m not scientist but here are a few of the important conclusions I think we can draw from all this:
1. The mice were genetically identical and ate exactly the same amount and type of calories – and yet one group was obese and the other was thin. The difference was not in calories taken in through food nor even through a difference in calories expended but rather, the researchers surmised, the gut bacteria in the obese mice were “hoarders” of nutrition while the gut bacteria in the lean mice let a lot more food go by undigested and therefore un-absorbed. Remember that next time you feel like telling someone that weight loss is a simple matter of calories in-calories out. Gut bacteria had more of an effect on weight than did diet and exercise combined.
2. It does, however, matter what you eat. If you chance to somehow ingest a skinny person’s poop then it will be wasted if you’re eating junk. The healthier leaner bacteria (and I say “healthier” because the scientists observed favorable metabolic changes as the obese mice lost weight after eating the lean poop) only likes nutritious food. Eating healthy food is important for far more than weight loss.
3. Maybe don’t try this one at home. Yet. Confession: I did actually go read the directions on how to give yourself a home fecal transplant. And it’s ridiculously easy. (Turns out you don’t need to sterilize or “clean” the donor poop because the bacteria is exactly why you want it. Trick is to pick a friend that you are 100% sure has no communicable diseases.) But the science, especially as it pertains to weight loss, is still so emergent. (Plus I totally don’t want anyone to come back and be all, “Well Charlotte told me to eat sh*t!”) Stay tuned as I’m sure there will be much more about this in the future.
4. Gut bacteria is freaking amazing stuff. I’m still mourning the loss of my appendix since while it was once thought to be a useless bacteria-laden source of pain, now it’s known to be a repository of good bacteria (like the tonsils I’m also missing). And don’t forget the mood-gut connection I wrote about in my post on panic attacks. Several of you readers (Kristy Forbes!) pointed out that “90% of the body’s serotonin (the chemical that regulates your mood) is made in your gut.” Me, being me, I had to fact-check that one and it turns out you were wrong. It’s 95% (!!!). I learn new stuff from you guys every day. For more explanation of the major connection between your gut and your mood, definitely read this article from Scientific American called “Think Twice: How the Gut’s ‘Second Brain’ Influences Mood and Well-Being.”
5. Mice are gross. At least as gross my kids. Also, I guess my cat’s incessant butt-licking makes more sense now.
What do you think about fecal transplants? Did the science win you over?? Be honest: Is this something you’d ever consider trying for weight loss?
OMG, this is so incredibly interesting and groundbreaking! You had me at the cookie picture, but I truly couldn’t stop reading. I love science! I have to confess, I mentally evaluated the thin people around me as to whether or not I could possibly ever have even trace amounts of their poo. I have to say, until they find a pooless way to ingest poo, I’ll try other methods. Like clean eating and exercising, trite and boring though it is.
A poo-less way to ingest poo… I see it happening;)
I first heard about fecal transplants over a year ago, when a woman dying of some intestinal disease was given a fecal transplant from her husband, and she totally recovered within a week or something incredible like that. Amazing. No word on if she lost weight after that.
The results truly are amazing in those situations and while I’m not sure how the idea came about I’m glad people are more open to it! My third son got c diff when he was 9 mos old and it was terrifying – he was on IV antibiotics for 5 days and then more meds for months afterward. It was a nightmare. I would have gladly given him some poop, lol!
Mice and children aren’t alone on the eating poo front. I went to the zoo to see their new baby elephant. We were all lined up to gaze upon the wee babe and when we finally get our place at the glass what is the precious creature up to? She was trunk deep in a pile of her mother’s turds, happily chomping away. Everyone watching was simultaneously disgusted and delighted. And yes, we took a picture (or three).
This whole article (while fascinating) just kept me thinking of the scene in Austin Powers when he’s drinking what he thinks is coffee but it’s a watered down stool sample. “This coffee tastes like sh*t!” (dang, I’m laughing my butt off right now. . .proving that poop is ALWAYS funny).
Oh I like you!! I like anybody that will just say poo jokes are funny and I’m not afraid to admit it!!
Hahah glad that lil’ elephant didn’t let an audience harsh his fun! And I agree – poo jokes are always funny!
Wow, this is really interesting. And gross. But being a nurse, it takes a lot to truly gross me out. This completely validates the assumption I’ve always had. I’m a health nut, exercise like crazy, and always say “I should be skinny!” — but I’m not. Now I realize that I’m probably the fat twin, with the fat-person fecal matter. 😉
Being a nurse, I’ve heard frequently the research about fecal transplants (mostly for treatment of C diff). I think it’s great science. However, I don’t know if I could bring myself to drink/eat poop for the transplant.
Well the most common method for humans is via enema… don’t know if that reduces the gross factor tho;)
“However, the FDA …!). Bummer.”
Had me laughing my butt off! (Laughter IS the best medicine…) I just love how excited you sounded, this entire post. Proving, you are, in fact, a 12 year old boy. And I love you for it! And, no, I will not be eating any poo in the near future. (although my horses, dogs, chickens and rabbits all seem to think it’s the BEST STUFF EVER…)
Oh I am indeed massively immature – probably explains why I loved teaching teenagers so much;)
Very interesting to me as my husband has Crohn’s. I need him to look into this! Thanks for sharing!
Please do it!! That website I linked has a lot of great resources since it can apparently be difficult to find a doc to do the procedure now, thanks to the FDA rules. But if you read the messages boards on it, the results are nothing short of miraculous for Crohn’s. Good luck and please keep me posted!
P.S. With your healthy lifestyle, you would probably be the perfect fecal donor for hubs!
Huh.
I’m all for it if it saves lives. For myself and my weight loss attempts, however, I think I’ll skip it.
That is all.
“huh” – That was pretty much my first reaction too! That and that brain-record-scratching noise they make in cartoons;)
I heard about this for the first time just the other day. It’s bizarre, but awesome.
I totally want to start selling my poop for money and buy a house on the lake and have my husband retire early now. I’ll call it the poop estate, the poo palace, or my lake pooperty. So many options.
I think we need to send Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs to investigate this.
How long before someone starts a multi level marketing business selling “skinny poop” to their friends.
What would the parties look like? What would the hostess gifts be?
I hope there is an infomercial.
HAHAHHA! LMAO!
Buwhahah – brilliant!
Lake pooperty. All the way. Please do this!!
My elderly, recently retired co-worker’s husband had back surgery which was successful, but wherein he contract c.diff. He was sick for MONTHS and she was playing nurse and driving to all kinds of specialists and felt at times certain he was going to die. Then they found a G.I. specialist purely by accident (she investigating a referral from a friend for a colonoscopy for herself) who is a pioneer in fecal transplants. Her husband was *cured* inside of 48hrs. No relapses (like the umpteen rounds of intravenous antibiotics they’d had him on), just better.
So, I believe they’re awesome, but no, I have hard time envisioning myself so desperate for weight loss that I’d go that route.
LOL to the pyramid scheme “skinny poop” from previous poster
That is simply miraculous! My third son got c diff when he was 9 mos old and it was terrifying – he was on IV antibiotics for 5 days and then more meds for months afterward. It was a nightmare. I would have gladly given him some poop!
All of this info starting to come out about the gut is so fascinating! I’m really interested to see where it goes in terms of actual applications. At the very least I’ve convinced my mom to try probiotics and see how it goes for her in terms of anxiety/panic attacks.
As for fecal transplants, honestly, I think I’d only do something that gross if it meant I didn’t have to watch what I ate so carefully. If you still have to eat healthy anyways? Eh. And I say that as someone who’s been overweight.
Yeah, it’s definitely not a quick fix. What struck me as kinda unfair though was how the skinny mice still stayed lean no matter what food they ate and even if they ate the obese bacteria. Sigh.
This is very interesting (and disgusting), but, of course, the question I have to ask is – do we know if the gut bacteria found in thin twins yields to better health outcomes or does it just yield a thinner body?
They did actually address this in the study – the “lean gut bacteria” did lead to better health in the form of “improved metabolic profile and a decrease in incidence of associated disease.” So, I think so?
I should add that I don’t know if the improvements can all be accredited to weight loss as there is SO MUCH that gut bacteria does to improve health so I think the bugs conferred health benefits beyond the weight loss.
What the WHAT!? This is amazing. Who knew poo could be so beneficial? I would consider doing this if they could eliminate the fecal part of it and just infuse the good bacteria part of it. I’ve suffered from IBS my whole flippin’ life, and I still wouldn’t have a poo transplant. The thought of it is too icky. I wonder if the ‘fat’ bacteria is hereditary? Because my mom’s side of the family are all skinny minnies and my dad’s side are all obese. I don’t think the two families really eat that differently, either. So. Bloody. Interesting! I’m all atwitter to hear more research about this. There are seemingly endless studies to be conducted to get a better grasp on how this could affect people. Like, I wonder how gastric bypass patients are affected by this because a large portion of their small intestines are bypassed. Does the food need to go through the gut, or is just having the bacteria in the gut in your body count? So many more questions. Thanks for this fascinating post, Charlotte!
Science AND poop in ONE post?!? YOU ARE MY PEOPLE!!
I’m going to my GI in a week and I think I need to ask him about getting a fecal transplant. While keeping a serious face. (Not possible.)
VERY interesting and WICKED funny! Thank you!
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