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The Gut-Brain Connection
A recent study in the US and UK surveyed around 4000 people both before and after the global COVID-19 pandemic. They found that there was an increase in disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety and other gut-brain disorders following the pandemic. This is a population based study, and doesn’t investigate mechanistic reasons for this increase. However, it does highlight the increasing connection between the gut and mood disorders. Could the same occur in our pets? There certainly is an increasing belief that this is the case. Hopefully, we may be able to pinpoint and manage these connections.
The Power of Poop!
Using fecal microbial transplantation (FMTs) to treat chronic GI disease is well established in human medicine, with recent research investigating the potential of FMT to treat metabolic diseases such as obesity, asthma and diabetes. However, the use of FMT may extend even beyond that. A Nature article (Jan 2025) published results of a clinical trial in people receiving stem cell transplantation for various blood cancers who were administered FMT capsules for 7 seven days. The researchers found this product was well tolerated and safe. Additionally, they found that when recipients had lower microbial diversity to start with, the FMT capsules had a greater effect (i.e the bacteria in the capsules found this a better environment to grow in). They also identified one donor that conferred a greater clinical benefit than others. This leads to the conclusion that individual assessment of recipients is required to determine if FMT will be beneficial and, if so, which donor would be most appropriate. Hopefully, we will reach a point when this is feasible in both veterinary and human patients soon.
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