trillions of bugs live in your gut. The diverse microbiome consists of thousands of species ofbacteria, viruses, fungi and other micro organisms. Your environment and what you eat affect its health in many ways.
To be healthy, the microbiome needs to be varied. In the modern world, diet is less diverse and can be damaged by medical treatments.
A poo transplant can be life-saving for some people who have been badly damaged by their poo.
It is the first time a faecal microbiota transplant has been given regulatory approval in the world.
According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the process of taking the poo of someone with a healthy gut and putting it in someone with a bad one is called fmt.
For now, the only approved therapy is for infections caused by the Clostridioides difficile bacterium. It is an infectious disease of the gut that can be fatal.
For some people whose gut has been disrupted by antibiotics or other medical treatments, it is as though their internal rainforest has been destroyed. The C diff bacterium makes toxins when it pops up.
The landscape is being revegetated by an Fmt.
He says to put something in there to block out the weaker competitor.
The cure for the patient is due to the fact that there is no C diff making toxins anymore. The rainforest prevents them from getting the reinfection.
There are a lot of research projects looking at what else can be done.
Evidence shows that it can be used to treat inflammatory bowel disease.
It could be used to help prime the immune system in order to make the therapy more effective.
There are a lot of claims for what FMT can do, ranging from the promising to the ludicrous, but the evidence is not in at the moment.
A lot of the conditions are present at an early stage. It is possible, but more likely, that you will need a defined mixture.
Some conditions may benefit from a more tailored mixture of microbes.
Unicorns are people who are not eligible to donate. There must be no chronic gastrointestinal disorders or immune compromised donors. They can't have had any recent antibiotics. They'll be screened for a number of diseases.
There is a special toilet for poo donors at BiomeBank.
They have to come up with the goods on demand.
The Hudson Institute is working with biomeBank.
The deposit is taken away and tested again to make sure there are no diseases that are harmful to a person who is immune compromised.
For a better description, the sample goes into theblender. The lid needs to be firmly on.
You have to make sure you don't expose it to oxygen.
There are strict protocols in place to make sure the sample doesn't carry any harmful species.
The faecal sample is loaded into a needle that goes into a colonoscope. It is frozen at -80C and thaws just before the doctor inserts it into the patient. The colon contains it.
Other options are available. An enema can be used to deliver the FMT. A capsule is being worked on by BiomeBank. It is up the other end at the moment.
The advantage of delivering during a scope is that you can get a lot of money in a short time. If you took it as a pill or a capsule, it would have to travel through the upper GI tract. You don't want to take a pill.
If you want to put a small amount of faecal material in a glass size, you have a problem. You wouldn't want that to happen.
When it is approved for other conditions, people may need more than one or two transplants, with a combination of capsule or enemas.
They have populated their colon with somebacteria.
The diversity of the system starts to return. The trees are getting taller. It takes a while for different species to come back in.
The recipient will be exposed to morebacteria through their environment once a rainforest is reestablished.
Other trees will grow if you plant some trees. It will look different in five years.
He says that the food and thebacteria come from being outside.
A second-generation treatment called the "super poo" is being worked on at BiomeBank. There is no need for a donor for specific strains.
There is ongoing research into what can be done with FMT.
Other diseases might need more specific tree species planted in a different way if C diff is replanted.
The way in which the human body interacts with the microbiome is very complex and can be dangerous, which is why domiciliary therapy won't work and can be dangerous.
There are warnings that some studies may be misleading.
A majority of trials that reported positive results didn't have enough detail to be reproduced, according to a study.
There was no quality control in many cases, and there was no regulation in many cases.
While wild claims should always be treated with skepticism, Australia is leading the way when it comes to research into the health of the gut.
Australians punch above their weight in a number of areas.
He says that it has a world-first regulatory precedent on the topic.
There are a lot of smart Australians.