“An important thing to keep in mind is that the study found a decrease in severity of symptoms, but there was no significant difference among the groups in terms of complete resolution of symptoms,” says Dr. Purna Kashyap, MBBS, a specialist in gastrointestinal disorders and codirector of the Microbiome Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, finds the results to be reassuring but warned more research is needed. The research team also noted that dysbiosis - an imbalance in the microbiota in the gut - was lower only in the active treatment groups at two and three years after the fecal transplant. At three years, the response rates were 27 percent, 64.9 percent, and 71.8 percent. When measuring the percentage of participants who responded positively to treatment, researchers calculated response rates two years after FMT to be 26.3 percent, 69.1 percent, and 77.8 percent, in the placebo, the 30 g group, and the 60 g group, respectively. Patients provided a fecal sample and completed five questionnaires at the start of the study and at two and three years after receiving the transplant.Īfter three years, some patients dropped out, leaving 37 in the 30 g group, 39 in the 60 g group, and 37 in the placebo group. Another 45 received 60 g, while 38 were placed in a placebo group (not receiving any FMT). Doctors administered 30 grams (g) of feces with a healthy mix of microbes to the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) of 42 patients.

El-Salhy and his colleagues followed 125 patients diagnosed with IBS: 104 women and 21 men. “This makes FMT an effective, easy-to-perform, and cheap treatment for IBS.”įor the study, Dr. “A single fecal microbiota transplant done with the proper protocol improved IBS symptoms, chronic fatigue, and quality of life in about 90 percent of IBS patients after three months, with over 70 percent of the patients maintaining these improvements after three years,” says lead study author Magdy El-Salhy, MD, a gastroenterologist at Stord Helse Fonna Hospital in Norway. Recent research published in the journal Gastroenterology found that these positive effects may last up to three years or even longer. Fecal transplant - when stool with healthy microorganisms is inserted into a person’s digestive tract - has been shown to reduce abdominal stress and tiredness in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

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