Let’s pause while we all recover from that image. Okay, ready? The diversity of our microbiota (or gut flora) is at the center of a research frenzy right now, with fecal transplants—that is, transferring stool from one person to another— being implicated in treating everything from weight loss and irritable bowel syndrome to depression and autism. There’s even a new “stool bank” started by MIT scientists where healthy donors can make a deposit for $40 a pop. But, so far, since most of this research is still in its infancy, not one expert we spoke to could tell us why changing the community of microbes in your gut through fecal transplants or probiotics might be helpful for treating these diseases. But that doesn’t mean there’s no reason to get excited about the possibilities. So let’s take a look at what the poop pill might be able to do for you. It can cure deadly intestinal infections. Fecal transplants are approved by the FDA to treat C. diff and have an 85 to 95% success rate, which makes them about 15% more effective than antibiotics. “People with C. diff have disordered flora and by altering it with healthy flora we can kick out the C. diff and restore a more diverse (read: better) flora,” says study author Elizabeth Hohmann, MD, of the Infectious Diseases Division at Mass General. It can help you lose weight. Mice exposed to fecal matter from obese people gain more fat than the mice exposed to stool from thin people. This finding led researchers from Washington University School of Medicine to conclude that fecal transplants might be able to prevent obesity by changing the community of bugs in our bellies. Now, before you go having an awkward “poop donor” conversation with your skinny friends, remember that this was a study on mice and we don’t know if the results can be duplicated in people. The real take home here is that the contents of your personal microbial ecosystem, and the traits they represent, might be transferrable. (Learn how to ignite your digestive system’s fat-burning furnace with Rodale’s The Good Gut Diet.) MORE: 7 Things You Can Do In The Morning To Promote Weight Loss All Day Long It can help you beat depression. Photo by Fabrice Lerouge/Getty Images If you’ve ever had a bout of nervous stomach, you are viscerally aware of how your brain can send signals to your bowels. But communication goes the other way, too. Behavioral neuroscientists call your stomach your “second brain” because the trillions of microbes in your intestines communicate directly with the regions of your brain that control stress, anxiety, and behavior. Studies in mice have found that adjusting gut flora with probiotics or through fecal transplants can actually decrease anxiety and depressive symptoms. And a recent study found that giving women yogurt packed with probiotics made them process emotional information differently than women who didn’t consume probiotics. All of this points to the possibility that you can change the way your brain behaves by changing the microbes in your gut. (In the meantime, consider these 6 natural depression remedies worth trying.) It can treat digestive discomfort and pain. Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) are obvious next research targets for fecal transplants given their success treating C. diff. But at this point there have only been 32 studies on fecal transplants for IBD on a total of 133 people, and the results have been mixed. As for IBS, initial studies show promise, and clinical trials are underway, but the bottom line is that we just don’t know how helpful it will be yet. It can treat diabetes. The microbes in our bellies can either promote or temper the inflammatory chemicals associated with insulin resistance. Researchers trying to figure out which bacteria are the key players in regulating glucose and fat metabolism have honed in on butyrate-producing bacteria (butyrate is a fatty acid produced when the bacteria digest fiber). These bacteria are protective in strengthening the gut and regulating inflammation, which can help treat and prevent metabolic disorders, which will lower your risk for diseases like diabetes. It can soothe autistic behaviors. The gut flora of autistic children is populated with an abundance of microbes that are not found in the bellies of kids without autism—and that microbiota is less diverse. Also, researchers have found that autistic children have an impaired ability to digest carbohydrates due to a lack of enzymes that stem from missing gut microbes. Doctors are hoping that adjusting the gut flora of autistic children might someday lead to a cure. What you can do now: You don’t need to wait for these pills to hit the market to promote a healthy, diverse microbiota. Here’s some good advice from Rob Knight, a professor at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder and co-founder of the American Gut Project, a crowdfunded, open-access research initiative to study the microbiome: “Eat more fiber, minimize unnecessary antibiotic use, eat yogurt and other fermented foods, and avoid foods that are both sugary and fatty.” MORE: 7 Things Your Poop Says About You
