• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Fecal-derived, full-spectrum, sterilized postbiotic

Shanti1

Administrator
Messages
3,139
I am curious, has anyone tried a product like this?
https://www.thaena.com/thaenabiotic

1636395365732.png

1636395441928.png

1636395153840.png


(I have no financial relationship with this company)
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,461
Location
Great Lakes
The website seems new. Some of the links don't work or go to areas still under construction.

It also sounds like we cannot order it on our own either since they say they are,

"committed to supporting our distribution partner(s)"

but don't provide a way for us to find out who those "distribution partner(s)" are.

Not trying to discourage anyone. I'd still be interested in hearing if this helps but it looks like we may have to wait for a while to find out.
 
Last edited:

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
This is probably freeze dried Sterile Fecal Filtrate. They take poop and strain it at 0.2 microns. Or it could be flash heated. The stuff is supposed to work on C Diff just as well as real poop, which is crazy. But will it help autoimmune disease? Hard to say. It if it sterile filtered, it might still contain phages.

You can order something similar from Flora Medicine in Portland.

Thank you for posting this, I will share it all over FB!

xoxo
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
The problem is no one knows exactly what is in your microbiome or the donor's microbiome. Or if there's some unknown virus etc that's lurking in the donor material.

While I am all for remaking my microbiome into a better version of itself, products like this without further information, can inadvertently harm us. Or they can be wildly successful. Unfortunately, this is a nascent science and this is like playing Russian roulette...
 

Shanti1

Administrator
Messages
3,139
This is probably freeze dried Sterile Fecal Filtrate. They take poop and strain it at 0.2 microns. Or it could be flash heated. The stuff is supposed to work on C Diff just as well as real poop, which is crazy. But will it help autoimmune disease? Hard to say. It if it sterile filtered, it might still contain phages.
This is probably freeze dried Sterile Fecal Filtrate. They take poop and strain it at 0.2 microns. Or it could be flash heated. The stuff is supposed to work on C Diff just as well as real poop, which is crazy. But will it help autoimmune disease? Hard to say. It if it sterile filtered, it might still contain phages.
You can order something similar from Flora Medicine in Portland.
The problem is no one knows exactly what is in your microbiome or the donor's microbiome. Or if there's some unknown virus etc that's lurking in the donor material.

Apparently, they sterilize it through an autoclave process (like how they sterilize surgical instruments), so I'm thinking no phages either. Just the dead bacteria (and virus and fungi) with their cell membrane components for signaling and metabolites. I'm actually thinking of trying it out on my husband (you go first, lol). He has IBS.
We sterilize (i.e. autoclave) the fecal slurry to eliminate infectious disease risk. Sterilization using heat and high pressure for an extended period of time lyses the living components in the microbiome and leaves behind their metabolites.

One of my big questions is if you have to keep taking it to get benefit since you aren't transplanting live bacteria, or does the "postbiotic" as they call it, modify your own gut flora through signaling and metabolites? Honestly, it is so new, I doubt anyone really knows. I have a phone consult next week with someone from the company and that question is on my list.

Flora Medicine seems to be the retailer for this product (it is the same one).

@Learner1 even though it is autoclaved, I hear you, it is a lot of components to be introducing into a sensitive system.
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
The problem is no one knows exactly what is in your microbiome or the donor's microbiome. Or if there's some unknown virus etc that's lurking in the donor material.

While I am all for remaking my microbiome into a better version of itself, products like this without further information, can inadvertently harm us. Or they can be wildly successful. Unfortunately, this is a nascent science and this is like playing Russian roulette...
that is why this is best left to the desperate. i am now desperate enough to take a blow torch to my intestines LOL
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
oh this is the flora medicine product? i think its fairly expensive if i recall correctly but i think less than poop.

if it helped autoimmune disease, that would be great, even if we had to take it long term.... but it would surprise me if that were the case. i hate that is works on C Diff cuz it makes everything so complicated lol. Shows us we know almost nothing yet
 

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
While I am all for remaking my microbiome into a better version of itself, products like this without further information, can inadvertently harm us. Or they can be wildly successful. Unfortunately, this is a nascent science and this is like playing Russian roulette...
Wow, you took the words right outta my mouth, only better words than mine which were generally "Ewwwww ...." and, "How do they test it for unwanted hitch hikers..."

this is the team: no
GI doctor, from what I can see:
https://www.thaena.com/thaena-team
It's a wonderful world when you can sell steam-boiled poop at a premium ....
 

Shanti1

Administrator
Messages
3,139
oh this is the flora medicine product? i think its fairly expensive if i recall correctly but i think less than poop.
It's a wonderful world when you can sell steam-boiled poop at a premium ....
:lol::lol::lol: belly laugh.
The product is $600 per bottle for 50 capsules.
1636491889175.png

@Judee

After I talk with the company rep I'll let everyone know if I learn anything else.

Apparently they also offer non-sterile FMT pills, basically an oral FMT, 30caps for $1300.

Both products are only available through a medical provider.
 

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
Apparently they also offer non-sterile FMT pills, basically an oral FMT, 30caps for $1300.
Oh cripes, am I ever in the wrong business, whatever it is.

I dislike them already, and suspect that their high prices are there to cover their probably extensive legal fees.

But then I'm a fully minted and existentially trained skeptic ...

Thank you, as ever, for posting this, and for sharing your work and follow-up ... you're a champ !!!!
 

Shanti1

Administrator
Messages
3,139
Oh cripes, am I ever in the wrong business, whatever it is.
Unfortunately, they will never accept our poo :(, so we have to say goodby to the poo-donor career option.

I dislike them already, and suspect that their high prices are there to cover their probably extensive legal fees.
But then I'm a fully minted and existentially trained skeptic .
It does seem expensive, but I'm sure there are also a lot of costs for paying poo donors and running all the tests on each donor and sample for FDA compliant poo. Not that they don't make a good profit.

I'm not sure wow covers my reaction, but I can't post the words that do .....
:rofl::rofl: second belly laugh. You are going to give me belly-laugh PEM.
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
I did see that when I searched for Flora Medicine. I'm not sure but I think only C. Dif patients can get FMT in the US now.

Do you know for sure, @Daffodil?



WOW!!! :sluggish:
Yes, they cal sell real poop only for C Diff patients. For $30K, you can go to Ventura Cali and see Dr. Sabine Hazan...big wig in the microbiome world. She will give you real poop from govt approved bank in the US....she will create an actual official trial for you, with n=1, which takes a lot of paper work
 

YippeeKi YOW !!

Senior Member
Messages
16,047
Location
Second star to the right ...
But then there are some people who think that if something is expensive it must be good.
This cra ..... uh, stuff may well be worth the incredibly high cost, but it's sort of like the first guy who looked at a pineapple and thought, "Now, that looks like dessert ....". I just don't have the courage to be that guy.

And I'm waaaaayyyy too much of a Scot to pay either the $1300 freight, or even the enticing bargain price of $600 ....
 

kangaSue

Senior Member
Messages
1,851
Location
Brisbane, Australia
Unfortunately, they will never accept our poo :(, so we have to say goodby to the poo-donor career option.
It's not all bad news. While your own poo is not suitable for others to use, it can still be highly beneficial to yourself when "recycled" as FMT using your own stool (autologous FMT).

Clinical trials into FMT for IBS and IBD are more getting into using some of the patients as the 'comparative placebo control treatment' to the donor FMT group in doing autologous FMT (a-FMT) and interestingly, there is always a percent of this a-FMT group that also achieve the end point goals of the respective studies. In some cases, that is as high as almost one third of the a-FMT controls.

Stool samples are collected from these 'a-FMT control' patients at time of the clinical trial, so presumably when the patient is sick and their stool composition would usually be considered to be far from ideal.

The research still doesn't know exactly what aspects of FMT confers the most health benefit and it's certainly not just coming from the transfer of 'beneficial' bacteria in the cases where a-FMT also achieves remission.

Benefit could also be down to the viral lode (natural phages), the fungal composition of the stool, or even the bile acids pool that gets eliminated via the stool, when these elements are transferred back to the start of the large bowel or into the small bowel. Maybe it also has a lot to do with colonoscopy prep clean out itself that most studies utilise before administering FMT treatments.

Regardless of whatever elements are involved in it all, the only way you could put a-FMT to the test on a d.i.y basis would be to make your own 'poop pills'.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308243/
Autologous fecal microbiota transplantation for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (2020)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6602784/
The Effect of Allogenic Versus Autologous Fecal Microbiota Transfer on Symptoms, Visceral Perception and Fecal and Mucosal Microbiota in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Study (2019)
[ Conclusions: This study showed that a single FMT by colonoscopy may have beneficial effects in IBS; however, the allogenic fecal material was not superior to the autologous fecal material. This suggests that bowel cleansing prior to the colonoscopy and/or processing of the fecal material as part of the FMT routine contribute to symptoms and gut microbiota composition changes in IBS. ]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29100842/
Faecal microbiota transplantation versus placebo for moderate-to-severe irritable bowel syndrome: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, single-centre trial
[ Three participants did not undergo FMT and four were excluded after diagnosis of microscopic colitis, leaving 83 for final modified intention-to-treat analysis (55 in the active treatment group and 28 in the placebo group). 36 (65%) of 55 participants receiving active treatment versus 12 (43%) of 28 receiving the placebo (participants' own faeces served as placebo ) showed response at 3 months ]