Scientists are preparing to test if microbes taken from a lean person's gut can help an obese person lose weight - and they will do this by letting 20 obese volunteers take a pill packed with freeze-dried poop.
The clinical trial, which will start this year, will investigate "the impact of gut bacteria on weight" by doing a "'stool transplant' from a healthy, lean person to a person with obesity," the study proposal explained.
Although the idea of ingesting a poop pill sounds pretty gross, the strategy could be promising, according to experts. A 2014 study from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University showed that gut bacteria were associated with obesity. Additionally, a 2013 study showed how gut bacteria from twins - one obese and one lean - affected the weight of mice.
In the 2013 study, fecal bacterial culture taken from the lean twin did not cause weight gain when given to other mice. On the other hand, fecal bacterial culture taken from the obese twin resulted in weight gain when given to another group of mice even if they had the same diet as the others.
Dr. Elaine Yu, clinical researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead researcher for the present study, said the team is optimistic about the results of the upcoming human trial. However, she admitted that she and the others "have no idea what the result will be" at this point, Ars Technica reported.
The question in many people's minds is: what does a poop pill look like?
Dr. Elizabeth Hohmann, an infectious diseases doctor and part of the research team, said she had hoped it would look similar to a Tylenol capsule. However, the capsules need to be acid-resistant to make sure they survive the travel down to the large intestine where the target microbes are.
As it turns out, acid-resistant capsules are only available in translucent form.
"So they are sort of brownish-colored capsules," Hohmann told NPR. "Fortunately, because they're frozen, when you take them out of the freezer they sort of frost up a bit and they're not too gross."
