Scientists at the University of Minnesota believe they can help people avoid diabetes — one of the nation's most costly and crippling diseases — by salting their intestines with microorganisms from the bowels of healthy donors.
Call it a gut feeling.
It's not as far-fetched as it may sound. Five years ago, U scientists pioneered the technique, known as stool transplants, for the treatment of Clostridium difficile colitis, a potentially deadly diarrheal disease that can result when most of the beneficial microorganisms in the gut get wiped out by antibiotics. It worked in more than nine out of 10 patients.
Now, the U is planning to spend $500,000 in a two-year test to see whether stool transplants could forestall diabetes. The disease has grown dramatically since the mid-1970s and affected 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3 percent of the population, in 2012. Another 86 million adults had "pre-diabetes," a condition caused by the body's insensitivity to insulin, which regulates blood sugar. Preventing diabetes or delaying its onset has the potential to save billions of dollars and reduce the incidence of related diseases affecting vision, the cardiovascular system, kidneys, nerves and skin.
Researchers believe rising obesity rates are largely responsible for the spike in diabetes — hence their interest in digestion.
"Metabolic syndrome, or obesity, that's the biggest prize," said Dr. Alexander Khoruts, a gastroenterologist at the U who will lead the study.
The study, tentatively scheduled to begin recruitment in March, calls for 20 volunteers. Half will get a fecal transplant, by endoscope, from donors with a healthy "microbiome," the community of microorganisms that live in the gut. The other half will get their own microbes back. Drs. Elizabeth Seaquist and Lisa Chow, endocrinologists at the U, will measure the volunteers' sensitivity to insulin before and after the implants.
"The microbes are part of the digestive system," Khoruts said. "They talk to all parts of the human body and participate especially in energy metabolism. That means they tell the human body how much energy to take in — so that's appetite."