Key Takeaways
Fecal transplant can help improve GI symptoms in people with type 1 diabetesGut bacteria from healthy donors improved pain, nausea, bloating and diarrheaMore research is needed to test long-term results
Monday, Jan. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A fecal transplant could help people whose type 1 diabetes has fouled up their digestive system.
Swallowing a handful of capsules filled with donor feces helped ease gut pain, nausea, bloating and diarrhea stemming from diabetes, researchers reported in a study published recently in the journal EClinicalMedicine.
“The patients experienced a significant improvement in their quality of life and symptoms, far beyond what we observed with placebo,” lead researcher Dr. Katrine Lundby Høyer, a gastroenterologist with Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, said in a news release from the college.
This is the first time fecal transplant has been tested in type 1 diabetics against a placebo, and “the results are very promising,” Høyer added.
As many as a quarter of type 1 diabetics suffer from diabetic gastroenteropathy, a condition in which the nerves that regulate the GI tract become damaged.
Few treatment options are available, so researchers decided to see if a fecal transplant might be able to restore gut health in these patients, Høyer said.
In fecal transplant, bacteria from a healthy person’s gut is transferred into a person with GI problems. The procedure is frequently used to treat C. difficile, a harmful bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea if it colonizes a person’s gut.
For this study, researchers recruited 20 type 1 diabetes patients and randomly assigned them to receive either a fecal transplant or placebo capsules. After four weeks, the patients initially given a placebo also received fecal transplant.
Each patients received a transplant from an individual donor, researchers said. They swallowed the capsules with a sugar-free beverage.
Patients who got a fecal transplant experienced a significant reduction in their GI symptoms, with scores dropping from 58 to 35. That compares to a decrease from 64 to 56 among the placebo group.
Quality of life scores also increased from 108 to 140, on a scale assessing the impact of irritable bowel syndrome, researchers said. Placebo patients only improved from 77 to 92.
“For some patients, this treatment means they can regain control over their daily lives,” Høyer said. “The method has great potential, and we hope to replicate the study on a larger scale to ensure more patients can benefit.”
However, more research is needed to study the long-term effects of fecal transplant on these patients, and figure out if some patients would benefit more than others, researchers said.
“We now need to investigate how the treatment can be implemented more broadly and ensure it becomes accessible to patients with the greatest need,” senior researcher Dr. Klaus Krogh, chief physician of hepatology and gastroenterology at Aarhus University Hospital, concluded in a news release.
More information
Johns Hopkins Medicine has more on fecal transplants.
SOURCE: Aarhus University, news release, Jan. 8, 2024
What This Means For You
Type 1 diabetics with gastroenteropathy should talk with their doctor about the possibility that a fecal transplant might help their symptoms.
