Why researchers at UCalgary want your poop
Posted Aug 13, 2024 5:18 pm.
Last Updated Aug 13, 2024 7:10 pm.
Researchers at the University of Calgary are looking into whether a pill made from poop could help treat mental illness.
Recruitment is underway for a study by researchers with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the Cumming School of Medicine that looks at the use of fecal microbiota transplantation to treat major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The university is looking for 22 research volunteers to part with their poop for use in the study.
Similar transplants are already being used to treat digestive problems, but the scientists are curious whether they could also be used to treat psychiatric conditions by tapping into the gut-brain connection.
“I think many people with mental illness really feel that there is a link between their GI system and their brain,” says Dr. Valerie Taylor. “This resonates with them.”
The research combines the work of Taylor, a psychiatrist and Dr. Thomas Louie, the pioneer of the poop pill.
“We’ve removed the poo, we’ve gotten rid of the poo, and removed the bugs and concentrated it into the capsules,” says Louie.
The potential is for new treatments based on what is known about the human microbiome and the brain-gut connection.
“What we are doing in the background is analyzing all the stool from the donors and the participants before they get fecal transplant at various points over the course of their treatment,” says Taylor.
She says researchers are hoping to identify specific bacterial patterns.
