An intestinal microflora from a donor can cause a metabolic disorder
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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After the scientists proved that the transplantation of fecal stool from the donor into the gastrointestinal tract of a patient with severe intestinal disorders, when antibiotic therapy was ineffective or did not help at all, is a good treatment and does not cause any side effects, this procedure became quite popular.
Recently, more and more people are recommending this particular method of treatment. However, one of the last cases of transfer of fecal masses with beneficial bacteria to a woman who was diagnosed with a recurrent bacterial infection showed that the selection of a donor should be treated more responsibly.
The fact is that the donor, who provided his useful microflora, had problems with excess weight. After the procedure, the woman normalized the bacterial composition of the intestine, but three years after the treatment, experts diagnosed her with obesity.
Transplantation of normal intestinal flora from a donor is usually performed to treat infections caused by Clostridium difficile bacteria. These anaerobic gram-positive bacteria are the main causative agents of severe infectious diseases of the rectum, which often develop after the destruction of normal microflora against the background of antibiotic treatment. When transplanting fecal masses from the donor, the gastrointestinal tract of the recipient is filled with a useful microflora, which allows almost completely to get rid of the infection.
More than once experts have proved that bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract play an important role in the metabolism process.
It is worth noting that before the transplantation of fecal masses from the donor, the woman had no problems with excess weight, but after almost one and a half years after the procedure she had apparent weight problems.
Special dietary nutrition, exercise did not show results, and already three years after the successful disposal of bacterial infection, a woman was diagnosed with obesity. In this case, doctors can not help, they say you need to do some additional research to understand what caused the violation of metabolism. Perhaps in the transplanted substance there was something that thus affected the metabolic processes of a woman, or the beneficial microflora of the donor caused metabolic disturbances.
As shown by experiments on rodents, transplantation of donor fecal masses with beneficial microflora from complete mice to individuals not having problems with weight led to the development of obesity in rodent recipients.
But experts admit that weight gain could occur against the background of active antibiotic intake, which are taken to treat bacterial infections, and other factors are also not excluded.
The procedure for transplanting fecal masses with beneficial bacteria is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, in 2014 there already appeared the world's first bank with fecal samples that can be used to treat diseases caused by Clostridium difficile bacteria.
Now work is continuing in this direction and experts are sure that transplantation of fecal masses will help cope with such diseases as obesity, Parkinson's disease, rheumatoid arthritis.
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