[HN Gopher] Faecal transplants reverse hallmarks of ageing
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Faecal transplants reverse hallmarks of ageing
Author : gmays
Score : 69 points
Date : 2022-05-06 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uea.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uea.ac.uk)
| programmarchy wrote:
| What's most interesting to me is that gut biome can affect the
| eyes and brain.
| giarc wrote:
| I was acutely involved in similar work a while ago (I was a
| donor for many C diff, IBS, Crohns patients and autism
| patients).
|
| The science/theory may have changed, but the potential link
| between gut microbiome and autism for awhile was thought to do
| with the levels of Clostrium (Clostridia?... can't remember
| back to my microbiology days) bacteria in babies. Most babies
| are born with high levels of Clostridium species in their gut,
| as you may know, clostridium are usually very good at producing
| toxins (botulism, c. diff, perfringens etc). Majority of babies
| seem to get rid of these bacteria at 10 months or so, but those
| with autism seem to hold onto them. The thinking is these
| bacteria continue to produce low levels of neurotoxins that
| affect the brain. It seems to be supported with anecdotal
| research which shows improvement in autism symptoms in younger
| children who are given transplants but not older children. The
| thought being the years of toxin affect on the brain has been
| too much.
| codyb wrote:
| Seems fairly linear no? Gut biome digests food to ingest
| nutrients which are used by the eyes and brain, ergo more
| efficient processes produce better results for them?
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| yes but not only, the surprising mechanisms act on other
| ways, e.g. the gut has specific
| neurotransmitters/neuropeptides.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| source for the eyes??
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Oh my god. Now we'll see 20-something shitterpreneurs selling
| vials of their feces online for 1 BTC.
| buro9 wrote:
| The future is shit
| bitwize wrote:
| That'll be peak Hackernews right there. Can't wait for the
| headlines:
|
| Poopr (YC S23): Platform for hacking your gut bacteria, written
| in Rust
| kamarg wrote:
| I know this was a joke but there's quite a few medical
| conditions that recent research seems to think can be cured by
| a poop enema. There's surely a market for a company to do
| screening, storage, and sales of feces in a similar way to
| sperm banks. As for price, if you can get it approved by
| insurance, 1 BTC may end up being cheap!
| giarc wrote:
| https://www.openbiome.org/
|
| A non-profit I believe, but it is a company collecting and
| distributing fecal material for transplants.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I'm aware. I have relatives who have had nasty, chronic
| infections cleared up by fecal transplants. But that wasn't
| for anti-aging.
| hkt wrote:
| Finally, a way young people can get a mortgage deposit saved
| up.
| sidpatil wrote:
| It's been done. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit
| deepspace wrote:
| I initially misread the title as "Facial Transplants" and
| thought, "well, obviously, but isn't that a bit of an extreme
| solution"?
|
| Needless to say, I was unpleasantly surprised when I clicked the
| link.
| KMag wrote:
| I remember a decade or two there being some research on using
| the cadence of their typing to identify and authenticate
| computer users. I'm sure I'm not the first to make a joke that
| it was "Fecal recognition... identifying you by the crap you
| type."
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| > _Prevotella sp., Lactobacillus intestinalis, and Faecalibaculum
| rodentium were significantly enriched in the aged vs. young
| groups
|
| whereas Enterorhabdus caecimuris, Turicimonas muris, and
| Muribaculaecae bacterium DSM 103720 were significantly enriched
| in the young vs. old group _
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Would definitely be an interesting remake if that scene from
| Silicon Valley, where the billionaire is getting a blood
| transfusion from his young "blood boy", did this instead...
| mariodiana wrote:
| Should it cure erectile dysfunction, I see a little poo pill in
| people's future.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| actually sex pills (PDE-5 inhibitors) are extremelly
| interesting, they are potent nootropics, increase healthspan,
| cancel MDMA neurotoxicity, potently protect the heart.. they
| are one of the best drug class humanity has found for longevity
| majkinetor wrote:
| It blows my mind that HR people are so medically illiterate.
|
| All that coming from the folks which supposedly like to hack
| around, while this machine called body is taken by totally
| different standards. I see next to 0 curiosity, exploration,
| auditing, logging, do-it-yourself attitude. Stakes are higher, eh
| ?
|
| Or did I imagine sentences like FT works only in mice, are there
| downside of messing with gut bacteria? (omg?), do people really
| eat shit (wtf?), how poop transfers during birth (:S) ...
|
| Amazing. Bring it on now!
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| HN is mostly medically illiterate but you gave wrong reasons as
| justification.
| flatearth22 wrote:
| daenz wrote:
| Are there any downsides to messing with your gut bacteria? I seem
| to see a strong bias of positive studies, but if our gut bacteria
| is as important as it seems to be, shouldn't there also be
| horrible outcomes to these kinds of experiments?
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I got very sick from drinking (well-boiled!) water when i was
| desperate on an island in the Caribbean for some water. For the
| next 3 years I had horrible gut issues and was basically told
| by a doctor that there's only management and not really any
| cure for it.
|
| Then I heard about this probiotic bacteria called
| limosilactobacillus reuteri which was implicated in a bunch of
| studies as something that they used to find in people's guts
| back before processed food really became a huge thing and all
| these very clear links to a variety health effects (I'll just
| link the wiki page) [1]. When I went to the store it was the
| most expensive on the shelf, 40$, but I figured why not and got
| a couple of them. Haven't had any gut issues since.
|
| I think there's worse things you can do to your guts than using
| the right probiotics for sure.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Yes there is generally a bias towards "do something" and if
| you've done something obviously it helps (so it seems people
| think).
|
| Then again, it seems like in general the biggest gut bacteria
| problems come from an overpopulation of one type and not enough
| diversity which intervention seems less likely to cause.
|
| There are also parasites which could be transferred but I
| really doubt that this would happen accidentally (hookworms,
| tapeworms, other things I don't know about).
|
| But this is always a good thought.
|
| If some treatment has the capability to actually help, it also
| has the capability to harm, there really isn't such thing as
| something which is exclusively good regardless of how you use
| it.
| lemmsjid wrote:
| There are indeed. Basically if you take certain antibiotics
| you're rolling the dice, because they kill off a bunch of your
| gut bacteria, and when the populations recover you might end up
| with toxic strains dominant which is an acute illness. I got a
| c difficile infection after a strong round of antibiotics. It
| took months to recover, because basically the treatment is to
| take more rounds of antibiotics and hope the right bacteria
| dominate.
| peatmoss wrote:
| I wonder if ingestion of relatively large amounts of robust
| probiotics would have helped. I've tended kefir grains off
| and on for the last 20 years or so, and have read that the
| curd that forms from kefir remains intact a bit deeper into
| the GI tract than e.g. yogurt. Some people eat the grains
| themselves which seems like it would be a large, robust
| colony of mostly helpful bacteria that I assume would fight
| for territory against c diff.
|
| Reminds me, it's probably time to source some more kefir
| grains!
| kamarg wrote:
| I would think that any positive effect could be reversed by
| essentially giving the opposite. Want to decrease inflammation?
| Get a younger gut biome. Mess up and get an older gut biome and
| you probably end up with increased inflammation.
|
| There is also evidence that fecal transplant recipients take on
| physical and mental traits of the donor.
|
| Quoting from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-09/faecal-
| transplant-sid....
|
| "There have been people who have taken on the shape of the
| donor, such as if the donor is either overweight or underweight
| they've become more like that."
|
| "There's even been reports of some people who have never been
| depressed getting a transplant from someone who's had
| depression and ending up with their first episode of depression
| after that."
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Without robust statistical evidence these kinds of reports
| seem very prone to confirmation bias or placebo effect.
| majormajor wrote:
| At least one person has died from a fecal transplant, in the
| following study: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2019/06/14/7328704...
|
| Not sure how well tracked it is for less-official/more DIY
| attempts.
|
| Lots of others have had positive effects, but there's
| definitely some risk involved.
| keithwhor wrote:
| ... in mice.
| puppycodes wrote:
| twic wrote:
| Or maybe the key thing here is that it's mice faeces.
| ekanes wrote:
| Yes, but I don't see why mice would be so different from humans
| for this kind of thing.
| foxyv wrote:
| I can think of quite a few. Just starting from their size and
| diet. Then moving onto lifespan.
| fredley wrote:
| You can freeze mice solid and warm them up in a microwave and
| they'll come back to life.
|
| Not everything that works in a mouse model works in humans.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| That's purely a size thing iirc. Lot quicker to get enough
| heat into a mouse to thaw it, than a human.
|
| Edit to add an interesting related video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Then can we freeze human hands/fingers and turn them back
| to function?
| warning26 wrote:
| Wait...really? Do you have any links to where I can read
| more about this?
| kansface wrote:
| I was curious too, and found this:
| https://www.damninteresting.com/reanimated-rodents-and-
| the-m...
|
| Apparently, it was a thing!
| jacobsievers wrote:
| I think this refers to James Lovelock's work with radar
| in the 1950s. But it was hamsters, not mice.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| And here I was thinking that the puzzle I'm Day of the
| Tentacle was just "moon logic"... good to know it had
| some precedence!
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| This article was posted here just 12 days ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31144130
|
| ("The Woman Who Survived the Lowest Body Temperature Ever")
| bpodgursky wrote:
| To be fair, have we REALLY tried this with people?
| Someone wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Preservation_and_
| Res...:
|
| _Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation (EPR) is an
| experimental medical procedure where an emergency
| department patient is cooled into suspended animation for
| an hour to prevent incipient death from ischemia, such as
| the blood loss following a shooting or stabbing._
|
| That page doesn't say this is a net win or worked well at
| all, but it's a difficult line of research. Not only are
| the first patients almost dead at the start of the
| process (as is always the case with high-risk of death
| experimental procedures), but there also is no way to
| know when a patient will show up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulator
| y_a... is easier in this respect:
|
| _Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (DHCA) is a
| surgical technique that induces deep medical hypothermia.
| It involves cooling the body to temperatures between 20
| degC (68 degF) to 25 degC (77 degF), and stopping blood
| circulation and brain function for up to one hour._
|
| I think that's a proven winner for some patients, but
| only at relatively high temperatures ( _"Profound
| hypothermia ( < 14 degC) usually isn't used clinically.
| It is a subject of research in animals and human clinical
| trials"_)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Some people are documented as surviving in freezing
| temperatures for extended periods, yes.
|
| This is what you would expect from freezing. It preserves
| things. The difficulty with freezing is getting back up
| to normal temperatures safely. (And the creation of ice
| crystals, which can be very damaging.)
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I think it was tried with larger mammals and it didn't
| work, which is why the research for humans was dropped.
| The hope that at some point in the future it may be
| possible is the entire point of cryonics.
|
| It works with severed body parts though.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Cryogenics is not about freezing humans, it is about
| vitrifying them, huge difference.
| anarticle wrote:
| If you honestly believe this, then you are dismissing nearly
| all experimental biology. This is a reason why scientists
| wanted to keep CLOSED journals, because of the lack of
| interpretation by the wider world. Not all publications are the
| final word, it's a model.
|
| Search my comment history for a deeper dive on this one. It's
| not a productive reply. You might not like it, but that is the
| state of the art. Animal models are 100% a valid way to do
| things.
|
| Also ITT: HN figures out that natural childbirth involves poop
| touching a newborn. Cmon, seriously? How do you not know this?
| it wrote:
| My dog loves eating the faeces of other animals, including those
| of my cats. I suspect the reason is to boost his gut flora and
| keep him healthy for longer than he otherwise would be.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are plenty of animals that do this for instinctual
| hygiene reasons (cleaning up after young in a den for example)
| and plenty of animals that do this to give digestion another
| go, having inefficient digestive systems. Among other reasons.
| pengaru wrote:
| Dogs eat everything edible unless actively prevented, in my
| experience.
|
| I think you're reading way too much into it, poop is
| practically food.
| chucksta wrote:
| There are a bunch of hypothetical reasons for that;
| https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/why-dogs-eat-poop/
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Faecal transplants that happen during birth are one mechanism
| that the body uses to pass down healthy bacteria to the next
| generation.
|
| People born with C-section before this was known have higher
| rates of various digestive diseases. At leading hospitals, faecal
| transplants are done to c-section babies.
| byw wrote:
| Pardon my ignorance. How does it get passed down in the case of
| regular births?
| xenocratus wrote:
| I'm not going to provide citation for this, but natural birth
| usually involves some level of pooping from the mother on the
| infant.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| The organs are far from sterile, whole pathways are very
| close, there is a lot of pushing beyond control which uses
| sort of same muscles... it doesn't mean every natural baby is
| born with big poop on their head (mine weren't), but these
| transfers do happen. You don't need that many bacteria to
| make it work, infant's intestines are a sterile place at the
| beginning so not much competition and food for them starts
| coming soon.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| The digestive system is supposed to be fully sandboxed from
| the host. Topologically it is as exoneous to your body as
| your skin and the sandboxing is necessary for your bacteria
| to not digest yourself. I would appreciate references on
| permeability mechanisms allowing for bacteria movement
| inside the body, on healthly humans. I mean there is a
| digestive system to human blood interface but I doubt it
| allow bacteria/archae/parasites/shrooms/atypical single
| celled eukaryotes to cross it. (little known but ~30% of
| your microbes are not bacteria but archae and withouth
| those we would not fart)
| amalter wrote:
| I believe we're talking about.. em, the exit points.
|
| Natural birth is messy. Infants get covered in all sorts
| of slime, some of which occurs at "first light", right
| outside the body.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Did you read the comment you are responding to as saying
| bacterial travel through the intestinal wall, through the
| vagina, and into the fetus? It seems like it, but that
| isn't at all what op said.
|
| The bacterial transfer happens after the placenta has
| broken and the baby is being pushed out of the vagina.
| The vaginal opening and anus are inches away. The woman
| is bearing down to push out the baby and there can be
| discharges from the anus. Even if that doesn't happen,
| the area around the anus isn't entirely antiseptic.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| of course contamination can happen once the baby it out
| of the mother body. I was refuting the intra-body
| contamination thesis. cf: > The organs are far from
| sterile, whole pathways are very close
| vrc wrote:
| That does not imply intra-body transfer, though. It's
| exactly what it says. The digestive organs and the
| vaginal canal are not sterile, and their pathways
| converge at the bottom end. Seems pretty straightforward
| from the rest of the comment that, once the amniotic sac
| breaks it's a bacterial slip all the way out, with a
| surprise at the end.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Faecal transplants that happen during birth are one mechanism
| that the body uses to pass down healthy bacteria to the next
| generation.
|
| Fecal transplants do not happen during birth. How would that
| occur?
|
| However, it is commonly believed that _vaginal fluid_ getting
| in the _mouth_ of the infant is a mechanism for passing down
| flora between mother and child.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >How would that occur?
|
| Would you believe that babies can get more than vaginal
| fluids in their mouths?
|
| EDIT: Pedantically, I know that's not a 'transplant,' but I
| think GP was trying to 'not be gross.'
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > EDIT: Pedantically, I know that's not a 'transplant,'
|
| On the contrary, I think that would generally be considered
| a fecal transplant. I believe the history of the procedure
| started with oral administration of the transplanted
| material, mixed into a chocolate milkshake.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| _" Who invented vaginal seeding? Researchers at New York
| University first wiped (swabbed) babies born by C-section with
| their mother's vaginal fluids. They wanted to see if the babies
| would develop the same microbes that they would have developed
| after vaginal birth."_
|
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22096-vagin...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| If there's fecal transfer I would think its between the baby
| and the mother. A baby poops a lot and a mother cleans up,
| probably gets some on her hands. Maybe a baby regulates the
| mothers digestive system in some beneficial way to the baby.
|
| Many women never get back to the shape they were in before
| birth and stay fat after? Could be a permanent change in their
| gut bacteria, caused by the baby to get the mother to overeat
| to produce more milk for the baby.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Those leading hospitals probably do not exist considering the
| time it takes for scientific knowledge to be used in practice
| is often infinity.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| "leading hospitals" are defined where? (so i can look into it)
| giarc wrote:
| I work in a hospital and use to consult with labour and
| delivery units on all things infections. I received a lot of
| calls about moms seeding their babies themselves. They would
| often ask the staff for gauze which they would use to seed the
| babies mouths and eyes. Most would do it one time, but some
| would have containers they would store some moist gauze and
| seed the baby over a few days.
|
| We obviously advised against this practice since there are a
| lot of unknowns, but what moms do with their babies in their
| room is up to them.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| This is really gross to read as I eat my happy hour calamari.
| Thanks, kind internet stranger
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| To anyone interested in the digestive system, BPC-157 is by far
| the best geroprotector related to it out there.
| dubswithus wrote:
| According to redditors that surf pubmed.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| and transitively according to the pubmed studies. You could
| have skipped the middle step.
| dubswithus wrote:
| There's a lot of crap posted on pubmed. And why didn't you
| just say... not well studied, not well supported, etc? If
| Cochrane were to review it would they say the evidence is
| weak for anything you could possibly claim.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Cochrane is a massive failure, they systematically ignore
| the relevant research. BPC is litterally called the Body
| Protective Compound, what more hint do you need? There
| are 164 studies on pubmed, the vast majority showing
| potent geroprotective power. In addition it is by far one
| of the most effective treatment for IBS and it remarkably
| potently reduce the time it takes for injuries to resorb
| and the quality of the repaired tissue. It has angiogenic
| advantages vs VEGF and I have seen many people trying it
| for various "incurable" disease and finding it was the
| first thing that helped them (e.g. a connective tissue
| disease).
|
| The thing is 1) people, including most researchers, are
| scientifically illiterate 2) In addition to mediocrity,
| incentives are fundamentaly extremely broken given that
| those peptides, being endogenously produced by the human
| body (a trenscendant characteristic versus synthethic
| drugs, which dramatically reduce the propensity of side
| effects)) it is not patentable. Substances endogenously
| created by the body cannot be patented and therefore
| cannot be monetized hence nobody will ever pay clinical
| trials. Of course a world where medecine can't leverage
| the same tech as the human body is doomed to be very
| limited.
|
| If you wanna add some substance to the discussion, learn
| the topic:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=bpc+157&sort=date
| pessimizer wrote:
| > BPC is litterally called the Body Protectice Compound,
| what more hint do you need?
|
| Are you familiar with Miracle Mineral Supplement?
| [deleted]
| bell-cot wrote:
| [rushes to buy shares in cloth diaper deliver services]
|
| /s
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| While this looks exciting it does say "in mice" so I take it with
| a grain of salt.
|
| I'm guessing the next step here is to try this in humans. Would
| there be less regulations/approval times involved in doing this
| vs say testing a new anti-ageing drug?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I recall reading about people doing this on their own, for the
| same reasons exposed in this paper. There's probably years of
| subject data already available.
| wantsanagent wrote:
| That methods section ...
|
| "recipients were ... twice delivered ... donor microbiota ... by
| oral gavage of fecal slurry preparation."
|
| More seriously the linked article didn't mention that for the
| recipients they destroy the existing microbiota via multiple
| antibiotics prior to transplant of the new.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Sooo, Elizabeth Bathory had the right idea all along, eh? (I
| know, I know, it's just a legend, didn't happened in reality)
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