CUSTOMISED CARE
The scientists DTE spoke to also think that given the abundance of health information that can be derived from faecal matter, it is likely to play an essential role in shaping personalised medicine that offers tailor-made treatment. For example, if a person lacks a beneficial bacterium, doctors might recommend diet modifications to enhance the level of that species, says Ramya. Rakshit adds that doctors might also be able to treat baldness by extracting extracellular vesicles from an individual’s stool and inserting a drug stimulating hair growth before re-injecting them. However, Ramya recommends caution. “We have miles to go before we develop the understanding required for this branch of science and figure out regulatory and ethical issues.”
One stool-based treatment that has already made its way into India is Faecal Microbial Transplantation (FMT). It is recommended as a standard-of-care option for recurrent infection in the large intestine, which causes watery diarrhoea and abdominal cramping. FMT involves injecting a solution of faecal matter from a healthy donor into a
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"Fecal MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers for Screening and Diagnosis of Intestinal Diseases",
"Host DNA contents in fecal metagenomics as a biomarker for intestinal diseases and effective "Volatile organic compounds as diagnostic biomarkers in gastrointestinal and liver treatment", diseases",
recipient’s intestinal tract. Vineet Ahuja, professor, Department of Gastroenterology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, hails FMT for producing “wonderful results” for recurrent infections— one session has a cure rate of around 90 per cent, he estimates. AIIMS Delhi is carrying out two clinical trials testing of FMT's effectiveness in controlling inflammatory bowel disease and antimicrobial resistance.
Faecal studies also have the potential to test the efficacy of vaccines, especially in low- and middle-income countries that see poor immune response due to weak nutrition, hygiene and living conditions. One study published in the finds that infants in Ghana with
abundant in faecal matter respond positively to the oral rotavirus vaccine. But those with higher prevalence of Bacteroides and Prevotella species, show weaker immune response. Another study published in the journal states infants in India with a wider variety of gut microbiota show poor response to the vaccine.
Researchers admit that there is not enough data in this area. “Whether or not the gut microbiota can influence the non-specific effects of vaccines is, to our knowledge, almost completely unexplored,” says a review study published in
While Gandhi may not have imagined such benefits of faecal monitoring, scientists agree there is much to derive from what we flush away.