Less than 1% of donor applicants pass screening standards
“But the donors, you know, there's sort of language around super donors. Most of those standards would allow for someone to have had an antibiotic, say, within three to six months. Well, we know it takes potentially years to recover from an antibiotic, especially some strains, will not recover. And so our donors, you know, we're looking at a lot of variables, but primarily breastfed, vaginally born, limited, or in many cases, no lifetime use of antibiotics. So we're really going into the weeds and all of these things, and less than one percent of people who apply to be a donor actually make it into the donor pool.”
Mood changes from FMT come from symptom relief, not personality transfer
“I've treated hundreds of cases. What I would say is is that and as a company, you know, we provided product to thousands of patients. I don't think that's a real thing here. What I will say though is is that when a patient goes from being in pain, having gas, or bloating, or brain fog, or you name the, like, frequent bowel movements, fifteen, twenty bowel movements a day, they can be kinda miserable. And so clearing that up, yeah, they become happier. But I don't think they're happier because they have a microbiome from a happy person. I think they're just generally happier because now they're no longer suffering.”
“There's a whole element here of actually disease prevention. So I'll just say from my side, like, I have a risk on my father's side of developing colon cancer. Very common. It happens all the time. I've had uncles, you know, grandpa like, they're all coming from colon cancer. And FMT is something that can be preventative, especially if you know there's a family history of something. So when you're a wellness type person, you're already biohacking and you're at a high level, actually, more of your improvement might be in disease prevention as a complete category versus simply symptom improvement.”
Antibiotics can permanently eliminate key gut bacteria
“Most of those standards would allow for someone to have had an antibiotic, say, within three to six months. Well, we know it takes potentially years to recover from an antibiotic, especially some strains, will not recover. They'll be gone. Like, oxalobacter bacteria, for example, are very sensitive to antibiotics and can completely be lost with a single round.”
Hadza tribe poop would likely harm modern Western guts
“And you mentioned the Hadzas. Right? And those tribes and, you know, imagining of course, I'm in this space. People ask me the question all the time. I would totally do that, but I absolutely would not recommend that for most people who are gonna be beneficiaries of FMT because what these tribes that are untouched have are parasites and things that would probably kill the average American who's got a weak immune system. And so although it's a cool concept, we actually wouldn't want someone to come from that tribe to be a donor in a program like ours.”
FMT capsules now replace messy colonoscopy and enema procedures
“So the enemas were sort of the next version of a colonoscopy, which is, you know, you can administer them even as a patient. Of course, a doctor could administer them. And but the the issue with the enema is you're only getting the distal part of the colon. And we know the microbiome. I mean, it stems from your mouth all the way to your anus. So when I got started, I started as well doing enemas. But then in 02/1920, we switched to doing more enema combination with oral capsules, and that has evolved.”
FMT protocols use clean, load, and maintain phases
“So most of the research around FMT is doing some sort of a clean out phase to to wipe the slate clean and make a a larger sort of real estate or more space for these new microbes to come in and graft, and there's less competition. Phase one, clean. Phase two is generally a loading dose, so a higher amount of capsules. And the whole concept is, like, you're overwhelming the system. And then there's the third phase, which is really the maintenance piece where you're trying to maintain with a daily dose for a period of time.”
Ben's food sensitivities dropped about 80% after FMT
“There's roughly, like, an 80% reduction in your food sensitivity panel, which is pretty dramatic. And the bifidobacterium longi plays a key role in educating this immunoglobulin response to things that would be considered like, is this a problem or is it not a problem? And your food sensitivity panel is telling the story that you're becoming less reactive to foods, and the bacteria very likely play a role in that.”
Restrictive diets like carnivore starve beneficial gut microbes long-term
“The problem is simply that any of these diets that are overly restrictive, and I'll include medical diets as well. And so any of these highly restrictive diets that are only relying on a very small amount of food groups are gonna have long term consequences because these bacteria, the way they live is through digesting fiber. That's their food. That's their fuel source. And so if you restrict the amount of fibers and fuel sources you're giving them, they'll eventually die off. But long term, if that's the only way that you're able to stay functional, it's painting a a totally different picture. There's a problem. And the solution's not just being on a super restrictive diet. That's only a Band Aid.”
