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If you have irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, should you undergo fecal microbiota transplant therapy or FMT?

Hi, this is Dr. Rieshow and let's discuss this question.

This is certainly something that patients, especially if they've tried a few different dietary changes or use probiotics and still

aren't seeing improvements in their IBS, in their abdominal pain, in their constipation or diarrhea,

or gas, or bloating, are wondering, could FMT help? And what FMT is, in case you have not heard of

it, is essentially taking the stool from a

healthy donor and then transplanting it into the colon, either through a colonic administration,

or sometimes through a tube down the nose or the throat, into the intestines. And the thinking here in the mechanism is that the tremendous

amount of bacteria contained in the healthy donor stool functions like a super probiotic

that contains a thousand some odd bacteria and also fungus. And this can help to literally

recolonize the host, in this case a sick individual,

with the healthy microbiota of a healthier donor. And there is great evidence for this being life-saving

in a chronic infection, Clostridium difficile. And there's some emerging evidence

that's hopeful and promising for inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's and ulceroclytis.

So it begs the question, could this also be helpful for IBFs? And the data here are unclear.

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