Month: August 2020

Fecal Matter Transplants and Phages

FMTs have been tried for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME with mixed success. The why of failures has been an ongoing interest of mine. We may now have a significant factor that has been ignored in these attempts.

 Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) as a special organ transplant therapy, which can rebuild the intestinal flora, has raised the clinical concerns. It has been used in the refractory Clostridium difficile, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, and some non-intestinal diseases related to the metabolic disorders. But this method of treatment has not become a normal treatment, and many clinicians and patients can not accept it. 

[Research progress of fecal microbiota transplantation] 2015

This week’s Economist had an extended essay on Viruses and the like: The aliens among us/The Outsider within, this provides good background.

In addition to this, there was a podcast reporting success with FMT was associated with higher Phage Diversity in the donor. Phages are the police of the microbiome.

In this retrospective analysis, FMTs with increased bacteriophage α-diversity were more likely to successfully treat rCDI. In addition, the relative number of bacteriophage reads was lower in donations leading to a successful FMT. These results suggest that bacteriophage abundance may have some role in determining the relative success of FMT.

The success of fecal microbial transplantation in Clostridium difficile infection correlates with bacteriophage relative abundance in the donor: a retrospective cohort study (2019)

My earlier posts on FMT

Bottom Line

This implies that for a greater chance of success and less risk, than DYI fecal transfer, that a lab that tests for possible infections AND for phage state may yield the best results.