Fecal transplants may not be common, but they are helpful for patients who are experiencing painful and distressing symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
What is a Fecal transplant?
This procedure involves transferring of feces from a healthy donor to a patient to restore the balance of bacteria in the gut. It is important that the donors are healthy when doing this transplant for it to work properly.
What are the IBS symptoms?
IBS or irriitable bowel syndrome is usually caused by an unhealthy diet, poor sleep, stress, and changes in gut bacteria. The symptoms of IBS include diarrhea, pain, cramping, constipation, gas and bloating, changes in bowel movement, fatigue, difficulty in sleeping, and food intolerance.
A double-blind placebo-controlled trial found that fecal microbiota transplantation improved IBS symptoms significantly in almost half of the patients. This is now considered as the highest standard for medical research. This study was released by Magdy El-Salhy, the lead researcher of the study and a professor in the department of clinical medicine at the University of Bergen in Norway, and it was released at the annual United European Gastroenterology Week in Spain.
Around 10 to 15 percent of Americans are diagnosed with IBS, and the American College of Gastroenterology stated this estimation. The symptoms can include abdominal bloating and cramping, as well as constipation and diarrhea. Even though the condition can cause pain and discomfort, it does not result in any damage to the patient's intestines.
There is still no known cause for IBS, but some experts have suggested that IBS may be linked to abnormalities in the microbiome, which is the plethora of microorganisms that populate a person's gut. FMT or fecal transplants work by repopulating a person's gut with a better and healthier array of microorganisms. The feces from a donor is processed and transferred into the gut of the patient.
El-Salhy and his colleagues hired 164 patients who had been diagnosed with IBS and those who experienced moderate to severe symptoms so that they can study whether FMT could calm IBS symptoms.
Before the treatment, the patients were asked about their symptoms. They were then assigned to get 30 grams of a solution that has their own feces or one of two doses that has feces from a donor. The doses were given to the small intestine by using a tube that is inserted into the mouth and down the throat.
After three months, the patients were asked to detail their symptoms again. Compared to the treatment that they had before, around 23.6% of patients in the fecal transplant group that used the placebo of a healthy donor stated moderate symptom improvement.
In the group that got the lower dose of donor feces, around 76% of the participants reported a moderate symptom improvement, and in the group that got a higher dose, around 89 percent of the participants reported a moderate symptom improvement.
Around 35.2% in the lower dose group and 47.3% in the higher dose group reported that the symptoms went away entirely.
