8 ms·

When Feces Is the Best Medicine

63 points by sizzle 12y ago

tjradcliffe 12y ago
"Someday, a commercial product may replace stool, making some of these issues less fraught..." A synthetic product has been developed in Canada and tested successfully: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/fake-fecal-transplants-for-gut-repo-13-01-10/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/fake-fecal... Curiously, one of the barriers to commercialization cited is the easy, low-cost availability of the "natural" alternative: "However, economic barriers to such a synthetic pill are significant. Elaine Petrof, an infectious-disease expert at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has created RePOOPulate, a mix of 33 different types of bacteria grown in the lab to mimic the microbiome1. Her team spent two years getting the equipment to grow the bacteria up and running, but the process is still expensive and the bacteria finicky. 'Honestly, good luck to you,' she says to companies trying to commercialize the technology. The high cost of producing bacteria in this way would be less of a barrier if the alternative were not so cheap. As Tom Moore, a physician and infectious-disease specialist in Wichita, Kansas, puts it: 'It’ll be difficult to compete with the ready availability and very cheap costs of human poop.'" (http://www.nature.com/news/faeces-filled-pill-stops-gut-infection-1.13885 http://www.nature.com/news/faeces-filled-pill-stops-gut-infe...)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
7Figures2Commas 12y ago
My startup, stool.io, provides on-demand stool for these types of transplants. We hope to become Instacart for fecal material. A lot of investors initially told me that stool.io was a crappy idea, but thanks to growing acceptance of fecal transplants, we recently raised a small seed round.
- kijin 12y ago
  Heh, stool input and output. Cool name for a fecal transplant company. Too bad poop.io is already taken. If you wait too long, your own startup's name might be taken, too: $ whois stool.io Domain stool.io is available for purchase Please visit http://www.nic.io/ for more information
  - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
    Looks like my co-founder has failed me. Time for an Ask HN: My co-founder didn't register our domain!
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      You're in deep shit.
      - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
        No shit!
        kijin 12y ago
        "No shit" is literally the greatest danger that your startup will ever face :p
        bsamuels 12y ago
        if it wasnt full of shit, they wouldnt be able to raise money in the first place!
- ffn 12y ago
  Finally, a startup business that can proudly claim you're full of shit
keyanp 12y ago
It is regrettable that such an effective and relatively safe treatment has received so much opposition due primarily to social stigma. Instead the healthcare system has chosen to trap patients into a cycle of using antibiotics to treat antibiotic associated infections and risk disease recurrence...
- jrapdx3 12y ago
  In this case, it's not the medical community that is impeding experimentation and progress, but rather the timidity of the FDA. The on/off signals emitted by the agency confuse and hinder the development of a simple and effective treatment for at least one disease with high mortality. I think there are people on the front lines who have a good idea of the technologies and treatments that work. The biggest impediments to implementation are often the insurers and regulators. Getting the unnecessary bits out of the way would likely result in a better and less expensive health care system in the US. This article is a good example of plausible innovation being stymied and I'm sure it's not the only one.
- refurb 12y ago
  Social stigma? How so? I didn't see that referred to at all in the article.
  - penprog 12y ago
    It was talked about when it was said how it was embarrassing for patients to have to find their own donors.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  I think the problem is that it hasn't proven to be "effective". Have there been any placebo-controlled trials at all? Even the 'positive' trial for C dificile wasn't placebo-controlled. Medical history is littered with extravagant claims for new medical treatments that end up being due to the placebo effect. Bear in mind that fecal transplant will have a HUGE placebo effect, so you need to rule that out before postulating that the treatment itself has any effect.
- 12y ago

63 points by sizzle 12y ago

"Someday, a commercial product may replace stool, making some of these issues less fraught..." A synthetic product has been developed in Canada and tested successfully: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/fake-fecal-transplants-for-gut-repo-13-01-10/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/fake-fecal... Curiously, one of the barriers to commercialization cited is the easy, low-cost availability of the "natural" alternative: "However, economic barriers to such a synthetic pill are significant. Elaine Petrof, an infectious-disease expert at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has created RePOOPulate, a mix of 33 different types of bacteria grown in the lab to mimic the microbiome1. Her team spent two years getting the equipment to grow the bacteria up and running, but the process is still expensive and the bacteria finicky. 'Honestly, good luck to you,' she says to companies trying to commercialize the technology. The high cost of producing bacteria in this way would be less of a barrier if the alternative were not so cheap. As Tom Moore, a physician and infectious-disease specialist in Wichita, Kansas, puts it: 'It’ll be difficult to compete with the ready availability and very cheap costs of human poop.'" (http://www.nature.com/news/faeces-filled-pill-stops-gut-infection-1.13885 http://www.nature.com/news/faeces-filled-pill-stops-gut-infe...)

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

7Figures2Commas 12y ago

My startup, stool.io, provides on-demand stool for these types of transplants. We hope to become Instacart for fecal material. A lot of investors initially told me that stool.io was a crappy idea, but thanks to growing acceptance of fecal transplants, we recently raised a small seed round.

kijin 12y ago
Heh, stool input and output. Cool name for a fecal transplant company. Too bad poop.io is already taken. If you wait too long, your own startup's name might be taken, too: $ whois stool.io Domain stool.io is available for purchase Please visit http://www.nic.io/ for more information
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  Looks like my co-founder has failed me. Time for an Ask HN: My co-founder didn't register our domain!
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    You're in deep shit.
    - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
      No shit!
      - kijin 12y ago
        "No shit" is literally the greatest danger that your startup will ever face :p
        bsamuels 12y ago
        if it wasnt full of shit, they wouldnt be able to raise money in the first place!
ffn 12y ago
Finally, a startup business that can proudly claim you're full of shit

keyanp 12y ago

It is regrettable that such an effective and relatively safe treatment has received so much opposition due primarily to social stigma. Instead the healthcare system has chosen to trap patients into a cycle of using antibiotics to treat antibiotic associated infections and risk disease recurrence...

jrapdx3 12y ago
In this case, it's not the medical community that is impeding experimentation and progress, but rather the timidity of the FDA. The on/off signals emitted by the agency confuse and hinder the development of a simple and effective treatment for at least one disease with high mortality. I think there are people on the front lines who have a good idea of the technologies and treatments that work. The biggest impediments to implementation are often the insurers and regulators. Getting the unnecessary bits out of the way would likely result in a better and less expensive health care system in the US. This article is a good example of plausible innovation being stymied and I'm sure it's not the only one.
refurb 12y ago
Social stigma? How so? I didn't see that referred to at all in the article.
- penprog 12y ago
  It was talked about when it was said how it was embarrassing for patients to have to find their own donors.
cpncrunch 12y ago
I think the problem is that it hasn't proven to be "effective". Have there been any placebo-controlled trials at all? Even the 'positive' trial for C dificile wasn't placebo-controlled. Medical history is littered with extravagant claims for new medical treatments that end up being due to the placebo effect. Bear in mind that fecal transplant will have a HUGE placebo effect, so you need to rule that out before postulating that the treatment itself has any effect.
12y ago