Don’t flush this nutty allergy treatment down the toilet.
“Poop pills” aren’t a new treatment for various ailments, with “crapsules” being used to reduce toxic side effects of cancer medications and even potentially increasing the odds of surviving pancreatic cancer.
Now, new research has found they could be a life-saving treatment for the millions of Americans with severe food allergies.
Up to 6 million people have allergic reactions to peanuts, one of the most common food allergies.
While treatments are constantly being developed to provide relief, an unusual approach based on prior research may offer a first-of-its-kind solution: fecal transplants.
Published last week in Science Translational Medicine, a landmark study found those with peanut allergies had a higher tolerance to peanuts months after receiving a fecal transplant from a healthy donor without food allergies.
The research team behind the study had previously discovered that stool samples transferred from babies with food allergies into allergy-prone mice caused a severe allergic reaction in the animals.
Meanwhile, mice that received samples from healthy babies were protected from allergic reactions.
The researchers identified “good” bacterial strains from the healthy babies’ guts that protected them against allergic reactions and put them into frozen “poop pills” for the newest study.
Using these strains from donors with healthy gut microbiomes, the pills were given to 10 young adults with severe peanut allergies for a one-time treatment of 36 pills taken over a few hours.
After four months, three participants were able to eat multiple peanuts before having a reaction.
The second round of the study added antibiotics to the fecal transplant pills, suggesting they increase the effectiveness of the microbiome transfer.
The fecal transplants reduced food allergies by increasing the amount of bile salts made by the liver, which break down fats to better absorb them.
Good bacteria from gut microbiomes appeared to be better at metabolizing bile salts, which can increase the amount of cells that regulate the immune system and protect from allergic reactions.
“Food allergy reflects a failure of oral tolerance, the process by which the gut immune system learns to accept food,” Talal Chatila, director of translational immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital and one of the study leads, said in a press release.
“What this study shows is that the right bacteria can help restore that process, working through bile acid metabolites to promote the immune cells that enforce tolerance,” Chatila explained.
The researchers are now working on a modified version of the poop pills, using a purified, concentrated form of microbes that can be stored in a refrigerator for easier access.
Larger studies are also necessary to confirm the findings, as well as identify those who are most likely to benefit and find any more beneficial bacteria that could be used for probiotic treatments to food allergies.
