Fecal microbe transplants help cancer patients respond to immunotherapy and shrink tumors

[antares4141]

https://theconversation.com/fecal-m...ZkdrgK7uOfqpzMZH87gJNJcsYO21kTydO8vhdfxN08sYo

 

[ljimbo423]

The gut microbiome looks like it has powerful effects outside of the gut.

This is a quote from the article.......

Fecal microbe transplants help cancer patients respond to immunotherapy and shrink tumors

The effect of a drug, or impact of a treatment like chemotherapy, doesn’t just depend on your body. The success of a particular medicine also depends on the trillions of bacteria in your gut.


The 100 trillion bacteria that live within the human digestive tract – known as the human gut microbiome – help us extract nutrients from food, boost the immune response and modulate the effects of drugs.

Recent research, including my own, has implicated the gut microbiome in seemingly unconnected states, ranging from the response to cancer treatments to obesity and a host of neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, depression, schizophrenia and autism.


What underlies these apparently discrete observations is the unifying idea that the gut microbiota send signals beyond the gut and that these signals have broad effects on a large swathe of target tissues.


I am a medical oncologist whose research involves developing novel therapies for melanoma.

To evaluate whether altering the microbiome could benefit cancer patients, my colleagues and I evaluated the transfer of fecal matter from melanoma patients who responded well to immunotherapy to those patients for whom immunotherapy failed.

Just published in the journal Science, our results reveal that this treatment helped shrink the tumors of advanced melanoma patients when other therapies hadn’t worked.

 

[antares4141]

The gut microbiome looks like it has powerful effects outside of the gut.

This is a quote from the article.......

Yes lot's of studies indicate bacteria in your gut have effects on all kinds of things outside of your gut.

Always a little leery about this area of research being overly hyped though.

Most is centered around how it affects your health but none how our immune systems respond to it and how that might be just as important of a dynamic to be considered.

Or in other words if someone has depression and you have associated the lack of one thing or the presence of another for the condition it might not be as simple as adding or subtracting that particular species.

The way an individuals immune system responds to it might in a large degree affect the outcome also.

Maybe there are some kinds of drugs that could regulate how the immune system responds to intestinal flora.

Maybe there are certain types of flora in our guts (or absence of said flora) that have detrimental effects on our immune system and if they could first be addressed a lot of the other conditions would not be much of an issue or maybe be sorted out on their own without a need for an intervention.

Keep meaning to read more posts here about people who tried fecal transplants to see what their experiences have been like.

Thing that scares me is it would seem just as easy to have a bad outcome depending on what the donar is exposing you to.

Not sure weather they are standardized for people with any conditions other than c-difficile.

I just don't have the time to do research or read posts here. Wondering what recent studies on the efficacy rate of fecal transplantation are saying.

Apparently there still needs to be research in this area. And clinitions still don't use it as a first line of defence against c-difficile.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gas...advanced_endoscopy/fecal_transplantation.html

 

[ljimbo423]

I just don't have the time to do research or read posts here. Wondering what recent studies on the efficacy rate of fecal transplantation are saying.

I don't have much time to read and research anymore either. I did just read a little bit about the efficacy of FMT in Clostridium Difficile. The research paper was published last April 2020. It said there hasn't been enough studies done to accurately know how well FMT works in CD.

Yes lot's of studies indicate bacteria in your gut have effects on all kinds of things outside of your gut.

Always a little leery about this area of research being overly hyped though.

While I do agree that there's some hype about the gut microbiome causing or contributing to many diseases. I think there is a lot of evidence that much of it is true.

I've read a study of FMT that was effective in treating Autism and one for ME/CFS done by Thomas Borody. The Borody study found a 58% success rate at putting ME/CFS into remission, after a 15-20 year follow up.

Both the study done on Autism and ME/CFS were done differently than most FMT. Borody cultured I think it was 13 healthy bacteria from the gut and used those to treat the ME/CFS patients. It is actually called "bacteriotherapy" not FMT but it's the same basic idea.

The successful study done on Autism first used a very powerful antibiotic ( I think it was Vancomycin) to wipe out any bacterial imbalances in the gut. Then used FMT from several donors, I think 10 for each patient, over several weeks.

This is the Borody study-

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) has a complex and multifactorial etiology making treatment and definitive diagnosis, currently made through exclusion, difficult.

Current therapies, such as cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercises, are inadequate and targeted to address symptoms, rather than the underlying disease pathology.

Increasing evidence implicates the microbiota of the gut in a number of conditions previously thought distinct from the gastrointestinal system. Previous work with bacteriotherapy in CFS has suggested a link between the condition and the composition and health of the gut microbiota.

Here, we review and further examine a larger cohort of CFS patients who had undergone bacteriotherapy for their CFS. Method: A total of 60 patients from the Centre for Digestive Diseases presented with CFS.

Of these, 52 patients had concurrent IBS and 4 patients additionally had constipation. All underwent initial transcolonoscopic infusion of 13 non-pathogenic enteric bacteria. 52/60 patients undertook an additional rectal infusion a day later and 3/60 undertook an additional 2 rectal infusions.

Results: 35/60 patients who underwent initial bacteriotherapy responded to treatment. 10/15 patients who failed this course were offered a secondary transcolonoscopic infusion followed by a rectal infusion or an oral course of cultured bacteria.

Of these 7/10 responded, giving a total of 42/60 (70%) patients who responded to treatment. Contact was achieved with 12 patients after 15-20 year follow-up. Complete resolution of symptoms was maintained in seven of the twelve patients and 5/12 did not experience recurrence for approximately 1.5-3 years post bacteriotherapy.

Conclusion: Bacteriotherapy achieves initial success rate of 70% in CFS and a 58% sustained response. Given that manipulation of the colonic microbiota improved CFS symptoms, bacteriotherapy for CFS warrants further investigation and may provide further insight into a possible etiology of CFS.

Reference

This quote is from the Autism study-

Based on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) rated by a professional evaluator, the severity of ASD at the two-year follow-up was 47% lower than baseline (Fig. 1b), compared to 23% lower at the end of week 10.

At the beginning of the open-label trial, 83% of participants rated in the severe ASD diagnosis per the CARS (Fig. 2a). At the two-year follow-up, only 17% were rated as severe, 39% were in the mild to moderate range, and 44% of participants were below the ASD diagnostic cut-off scores (Fig. 2a).

The parent-rated Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) assessment revealed that 89% of participants were in the severe range at the beginning of the trial, but the percentile dropped to 47% at the two-year follow-up (Fig. 2b), with 35% in the mild/moderate range and 18% below the cut-off for ASD.

Reference

My question is, if they could make FMT 100% effective in re-balancing the gut microbiome, how much better would these study results be???

 

[antares4141]

IConclusion: Bacteriotherapy achieves initial success rate of 70% in CFS and a 58% sustained response.Given that manipulation of the colonic microbiota improved CFS symptoms, bacteriotherapy for CFS warrants further investigation and may provide further insight into a possible etiology of CFS.

You would think researchers and dr's that treat CFS would be all over this with results that impressive? Are there any posts on' this form with people having that level of success?

 

[gbells]

Thanks for sharing this article. As Craysing is an immunotherapy it made me consider the importance of healthy gut flora on apoptosis.

 

[ljimbo423]

You would think researchers and dr's that treat CFS would be all over this with results that impressive?

I agree. I wonder how many Dr's or researchers know about it.

Are there any posts on' this form with people having that level of success?

There is one guy here that used his 5 year old daughters stool. She had never taken any antibiotics in her life and was very healthy. He developed ME/CFS after getting MRSA and was given MASSIVE amounts of antibiotics, much of which were given intravenously .

This guy wiped out his gut bacteria with antibiotics, followed by the FMT's. He also used a centrifuge and used multiple layers of digestion resistant capsules to prepare the FMT's.

It really looks like HOW the FMT is done, is one of the biggest determining factors in weather it's successful or not.

This is a quote from a thread he started-

I started back in January and the most significant portion of my remission has remained since about March. I did however perform about 9-12 FMT transplantation events between Jan-Mar. I may have been able to get away with fewer and especially if I started resistant starch earlier. I did wait for 1/2 year to report a remission.

I also believe I can explain why most FMT attempts fail.

His last post was January 2019. I am assuming he is still 100%. Last I knew he was doing martial arts and all kinds of cardio with no problem. He has a blog somewhere detailing his experience but I can't find it!

 

[gbells]

I agree. I wonder how many Dr's or researchers know about it.

Probably very few. Nutrition and supplementation gets very few hours of medical education and most MDs only learn it on the side out of desperation if they have a personal problem that is not responding to medicine. This is so bad that the authorities are not even telling the public that following a low inflammation, low glyfosate diet dramatically lowers the severity and mortality of coronavirus-19 infection. This mainly protects the food and pharmaceutical industry (Bayer who makes glyfosate and glyfosate resistant seed).

My favorite medical author on nutrition is the neurologist David Perlmutter MD.

 

[antares4141]

last post was January 2019. I am assuming he is still 100%. Last I knew he was doing martial arts and all kinds of cardio with no problem. He has a blog somewhere detailing his experience but I can't find it!

I've dreamed of an outcome like that for 23 years. Surely anyone who is anybody knows about this! Why aren't they doing more trials and studies?

 

[ljimbo423]

I've dreamed of an outcome like that for 23 years. Surely anyone who is anybody knows about this! Why aren't they doing more trials and studies?

I've had that same dream for a long time. I've had ME/CFS for 43 years.

Studies are being done but not a lot from what I've seen in my research. I think a big part of the problem is that there are too many theories about what causes ME/CFS. So the amount of research going into FMT is a lot less than it should be.

Here is a link to another study done in ME/CFS with very impressive outcomes. A high percentage of people with ME/CFS had between a 75-95% improvement in the symptoms.

As they better perfect FMT, that percentage will go even higher.

A retrospective outcome study of 42 patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 30 of whom had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Half were treated with oral approaches, and half were treated with Faecal Microbiome Transplantation

 

[antares4141]

I've had that same dream for a long time. I've had ME/CFS for 43 years..

Sorry to hear that. This illness has taken so much from so many. It's hard to fathom how authorities can simply sit on their hands when they are not funding studies like Pace.

I

As they better perfect FMT, that percentage will go even higher.

Like to see more people doing it and getting better with the treatment. Than I would definitely look into it.

 

[ljimbo423]

This illness has taken so much from so many. It's hard to fathom how authorities can simply sit on their hands when they are not funding studies like Pace.

I think if they really new the true level of suffering from this illness and that it's not psychological, that would be different. At least I hope it would be. I feel fortunate to some degree, that I am functioning at a level 6.

Like to see more people doing it and getting better with the treatment. Than I would definitely look into it.

I think I would try it if I had a good donor and could afford to have their gut microbiome tested for pathogens etc. At this point I don't have either.

 

[antares4141]

When I was inside a moldy house I was for all intent's and purposes bed bound. I could manage my shopping feeding myself some household cleaning but not much more than that. And I had to push myself (pull myself up by the straps) which meant crashes.

When I moved to my back yard I got a lot more of my health back. Been at about that level since except when I moved back into houses which always seem to make me worse even when there is no visible mold.

My dad's place in North Carolina put me all the way back to bed bound. Had to crawl out on my hands and knees and sleep in a tent for a week before I could get some sense of normalcy back.

I am 61 so I figure age is affecting me at this point to some degree. But if I conserve energy and take a 1 or two hour nap after lunch I can run the rest of the day doing some light chores and spending time on my computer. If I skip the nap which isn't optional most the time, I won't make it till 11pm. I'll fall asleep at 8 or 9pm.

High cognitive tasks that require problem solving cause stress and are very difficult. I have taxes coming up. At first it is hard and daunting. Gotten much easier and less daunting since I can get all my records online and turbo tax makes all the calculations..

I still suspect an environmental component. My housing is alternative. Metal building I sheathed the inside with foam panels and suspect the fire retardants and styrene are causing me problems. I never make any real progress in my life. I am just treading water. I have a large chore, have to fix a roof. Been putting it off. Will be a ensuing crash after I get it done.

I watch my neighbor who is close to 80 starting a little over ten years ago build a palace from scratch. Dig ditches, put in irrigation system, fix things. There was a time when I could do that!

When I go into town 55 miles away it is an all day event. Many times I am a vegetable the next day but don't crash since driving isn't that physically demanding, shopping isn't that much more than light household chores. Still next day will likely be a recovery day.

I suspect my level around the same level of functioning as a 6?

If it were any worse than it is I don't know how I could cope!