Your Poop May Hold the Secret to Long Life
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Lots of things can disrupt your gut health over the years. A high-sugar diet, stress, antibiotics — all are linked to bad changes in the gut microbiome, the microbes that live in your intestinal tract. And this can raise the risk for disease. But what if you could erase all that damage, restoring your gut to a time when you were younger and healthier? It could be possible, scientists say, by having people take a sample of their own stool when they are young to be put back into their colons when they are older. While the science to back this up isn't quite there yet, some researchers are saying we shouldn't wait. They are calling on existing stool banks to let people start banking their stool now, so it's there for them to use if the science becomes available. But how would that work? First, you'd go to a stool bank and provide a fresh sample of your poop, which would be screened for diseases, washed, processed, and deposited into a long-term storage facility.
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@ashma While stool banks do exist today, the samples inside are destined not for the original donors but rather for sick patients hoping to treat an illness. Using FMT, doctors transfer the fecal material to the patient's colon, restoring helpful gut microbiota.