Experts at Harvard suggest establishing a new type of bank: a stool bank. In a paper published last week, they argue that people can leave a stool sample relatively early in life, and it can be stored indefinitely and used later, if needed, to replenish unstable gut microbiomes. However, they also point out that there will be many difficulties in creating this system, such as finding the most suitable storage conditions and cost.
Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has become the standard treatment for chronic infections caused by Clostridioides difficile or C. diff. By cleaning a person’s gut microbiome with antibiotics and then adding healthy donor stool, the microbiome can be cleansed in a way that prevents the return of harmful C. diff bacteria. But given how important the microbiome appears to be to our overall functioning and well-being, scientists hope these transplants can do more to improve people’s health.
One of the barriers to realizing this potential is that it can be difficult to predict the effects of donor feces on the recipient’s microbiome. For example, research says there may be super-donors whose feces are much more successful than average at treating C. diff infections. Many researchers, including the authors of this article, argue that storing a person’s healthy stool at a young age and transporting it later when faced with a related health issue may offer clearer benefits.
The recommendation comes from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and the paper was published Thursday in Trends in Molecular Medicine.
This concept is known as autologous transplant and is already used in other fields of medicine. For example, people with blood cancer may donate some of their immune-related stem cells before undergoing chemotherapy, and then the cells are given back to help the bone marrow damaged by these treatments heal. Other examples include using stem cells collected from umbilical cord blood, which can be stored if the child develops certain health problems.
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