What does your poo say about you?
Organ transplantation has been around since the 1800s and although it is one the most challenging and complex areas of modern medicine, it is now a common procedure with the potential to not only prolong but save a human life.
In recent years though, the medical world has welcomed a new player on the scene whose profile continues to rise in popularity – the faecal microbiota transplant.
What is it, you ask? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like; you take microbe-rich-poo from a healthy person and put it into a sick person. Why? Because the easiest way to get close to our microbes – those trillions of little organisms living in and on us – is through our poo.
As more research about our gut microbes and the powerful connection they have to our immune, nervous and hormone systems is revealed, scientists are considering how these microbes may be used to treat various health concerns. The way they are doing this is by sequencing the DNA of the microbes living in our bodies from our poo.
Seen as an amazing research tool, poo transplants are now being used as therapy for serious gut problems but also have the potential to alter mental health, thinking and behaviour!
Gut Feelings: Your Mind, Your Microbes is an exhibition now open at Melbourne Museum and explores the world of faecal transplants and more.
Visitors can listen to personal stories of donors, doctors and patients, look at objects showing the what and how of transplants such as the type of medical equipment used, learn the story of microbe evolution including antibiotic resistance, and even be part of a world-first research project by contributing saliva samples to show how, or indeed if, our inner microbes reflect our daily lives.
Would you ever consider a poo transplant to improve your health outcomes?
Now here's a great incentive to stay healthy, so you won't need a poo transplant.
Wife pass me my green drink please!