In June this year, a poop bank opened in Singapore. Yes, you heard it right, just like saving money, poop can also be deposited in the "bank". When you get older, these poop can be stuffed back into your body to help treat diseases. It sounds a bit harsh, but the reason behind it

In June this year, Singapore opened a shit bank. Yes, you heard it right, just like saving money, poop can also be deposited in the "bank". When you get older, these poop can be stuffed back into your body to help treat diseases.

sounds a bit harsh, but the reason behind it is quite scientific. Because fecal transplant can effectively treat diseases, and the stool you have when you are healthy is the most effective. Researchers' daily job is to study and collect the microbiome in people's guts.

They treat poop like a bank treats your money, ensuring that it will be returned to you intact when you need to take it out. Thinking about the way the stool was carefully taken care of, I suddenly felt like I didn't know what to say.

Re-understanding stool

According to recent research, the bacterial communities in the intestines have a significant impact on human health. They can regulate appetite, affect intestinal inflammation levels, and even play a role in diabetes and dementia . By characterizing an individual's gut microbiome, researchers are able to manipulate the composition of bacteria to produce health benefits.

This medical center studies how the bacteria in the gut affect health and aging, and how they can be used to delay the onset of age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.

In the warehouse at minus 80 degrees Celsius, there are 200 to 300 tubes of "thick consistency" stored, which are basically extracted by rotating 250 grams of human feces at high speed.

These extracted "thick substances" will be transplanted into the intestines of suitable patients through endoscopes, and then the bacteria will stick to the inner wall, replicate and grow, inhibit harmful bacteria, thereby restoring the healthy balance of the human microbiome.

Fecal transplantation is highly effective

Fecal transplantation refers to transferring one person's feces into another person's body through oral administration (don't worry, they are capsules) or rectal infusion. The purpose of this is to transplant beneficial microorganisms from the donor's intestines to the patient so that the microorganisms can cure the disease.

Previously, Jansson, a microbial ecologist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State, successfully cured an elderly woman's diarrhea that had persisted for more than 8 months by transplanting her husband's healthy fecal bacteria in just 2 days. phenomenon and lost 27 kilograms in weight.

Jansson said that according to experimental data, the effectiveness of this method is about 90%.

Jeremy Lim, co-founder of Amili, the startup that runs the bank, said patients who had diarrhea 10 to 15 times a day were cured within 24 hours.

Over two years, Amili helped perform 30 transplants in Asia, shipping samples to doctors in Malaysia and Thailand. According to the research plan, they will complete 200 to 300 fecal transplant operations this year.

Medical hot cakes

Microorganisms are related to many diseases. As a treatment method that can change the microbiome, fecal transplantation has also become popular in the medical field. Currently, more than 100 clinical trials are investigating the effects of fecal transplants on depression, epilepsy, cancer, autism, COVID-19, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

Studying how gut microbes communicate with tissues such as the brain could pave the way for new treatments to prevent and manage age- and lifestyle-related diseases, experts say. "In contrast to genes that are less susceptible to change, gut microbes are malleable and responsive to diet, making them prime targets for food intervention."

Do you want to save your own poop?

This is a paid service. It is understood that the center usually starts storing stool for 10 years, and the cost is equivalent to about 30,000 yuan.

editor: Chu Shuting

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