The Daily Blog Open Mic – 28th July 2025

This is worth the time to read and get the gist.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/wellbeing/woman-says-faecal-transplant-saved-her-and-could-help-many-more-like-her ABC Jul;.28/25
After 18 yeas with bipolar 1 disorder, an Australian woman’s life has been changed by a poo transplant from her partner…
Now, all those years on from that first tentative blending, and without a manic episode since September 2017, Jane feels confident in saying she has been cured of an illness psychiatry labels incurable.
It was a world-first use of FMT to cure bipolar and experts were stunned…

Jane’s psychiatrist, Russell Hinton, monitored Jane’s progress during the treatment.
He describes the change in Jane as “bordering on miraculous”.
Gordon Parker of the University of NSW’s psychiatry faculty said Jane’s recovery through FMT was one of the most exciting developments in his 50 years of psychiatry.
But Jane and specialists warn that the DIY method she had turned to carries significant risks — including death — if the faecal donor is not properly screened.
There is a risk that serious disease, obesity or antibiotic resistance can be transferred from an unscreened donor to a recipient….

Earlier in Jane’s life –
…Alex learned how Jane had been a bright, sporty kid with expectations of going to university and becoming a professional soccer player. But, by her teenage years, anxiety crept in.
Then, at age 15, she was sexually abused by an uncle she didn’t grow up with.
“It broke me on a fundamental level and was definitely the trigger for me developing serious mental illness,” Jane says.
An extended bout of tonsillitis and glandular fever followed and the illness and her mental health conspired to keep her from school. Jane said she dropped out at year 11 and “lost myself for the next 18 years”
For vast chunks of time, Jane’s depression was so severe she could not get out of bed or tend to her basic needs, requiring family or friends to look after her. At times, she was suicidal.
Jane would flip into mania, where she would travel to other planets and speak with aliens. “I would be talking to spirits … I would feel like I had godlike powers and that I was the chosen one,” she says….

Alex knew that the gut biome — a range of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes in the gut — influenced the production of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that were crucial for mood and motivation.
He recalled Jane’s stories of being given large amounts of antibiotics over almost two years to combat her tonsillitis. He figured that her gut biome could have been starved and diminished by the antibiotics….

Gordon Parker of the University of NSW’s psychiatry faculty said Jane’s recovery through FMT was one of the most exciting developments in his 50 years of psychiatry….
Professor Parker said the fact that FMT — a procedure already approved to manage a severe gut infection — did cure Jane’s bipolar could represent a paradigm shift in the way some mental illnesses were treated.,,
He has since written a book, A Gut Mood Solution, presenting five FMT case studies other than Jane’s, including one of his own patients. Two of those people have experienced remission.
“The concept of our gut microbiome and how that might be actually influencing our mood for the worst or for the better is the new paradigm and that has huge implications in terms of managing mood disorders,” Professor Parker says…

It confounds Jane that the Food and Mood Centre has been unable to attract funding for a clinical trial despite being ready to launch after conducting a successful pilot study based on her case.
“If we can show with clinical trials that faecal transplant could help a large proportion of people with serious mental illness, the social impact will be huge, but also the financial impact,” she says.
****************
https://www.nist.gov/health/future-medicine-your-poop
The power of poop comes from the microbes it contains. They are a rich sampling of the trillions of microbes living inside our gut, all part of the gut microbiome. In the last decade, scientists have linked the gut microbiome to a raft of human diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, bacterial infections, autoimmune disorders, obesity and even cancer and mental illness.
Isolating fecal microbes and then turning them into therapies may be a way to treat many of these diseases. In fact, the FDA has recently approved two drugs for treating recurring bacterial infections, both of which are derived from highly processed human stool samples…

2 COMMENTS

Greywarbler July 28, 2025 At 4:51 pm

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568229/government-proposes-scaffolding-rules-change-to-align-with-risk-level
WTF It can be carried too far but letting people decide has loopholes that workers could slip through.
Greywarbler July 28, 2025 At 10:21 pm

This is worth the time to read and get the gist.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/wellbeing/woman-says-faecal-transplant-saved-her-and-could-help-many-more-like-her ABC Jul;.28/25
After 18 yeas with bipolar 1 disorder, an Australian woman’s life has been changed by a poo transplant from her partner…
Now, all those years on from that first tentative blending, and without a manic episode since September 2017, Jane feels confident in saying she has been cured of an illness psychiatry labels incurable.
It was a world-first use of FMT to cure bipolar and experts were stunned…

Jane’s psychiatrist, Russell Hinton, monitored Jane’s progress during the treatment.
He describes the change in Jane as “bordering on miraculous”.
Gordon Parker of the University of NSW’s psychiatry faculty said Jane’s recovery through FMT was one of the most exciting developments in his 50 years of psychiatry.
But Jane and specialists warn that the DIY method she had turned to carries significant risks — including death — if the faecal donor is not properly screened.
There is a risk that serious disease, obesity or antibiotic resistance can be transferred from an unscreened donor to a recipient….

Earlier in Jane’s life –
…Alex learned how Jane had been a bright, sporty kid with expectations of going to university and becoming a professional soccer player. But, by her teenage years, anxiety crept in.
Then, at age 15, she was sexually abused by an uncle she didn’t grow up with.
“It broke me on a fundamental level and was definitely the trigger for me developing serious mental illness,” Jane says.
An extended bout of tonsillitis and glandular fever followed and the illness and her mental health conspired to keep her from school. Jane said she dropped out at year 11 and “lost myself for the next 18 years”
For vast chunks of time, Jane’s depression was so severe she could not get out of bed or tend to her basic needs, requiring family or friends to look after her. At times, she was suicidal.
Jane would flip into mania, where she would travel to other planets and speak with aliens. “I would be talking to spirits … I would feel like I had godlike powers and that I was the chosen one,” she says….

Alex knew that the gut biome — a range of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes in the gut — influenced the production of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that were crucial for mood and motivation.
He recalled Jane’s stories of being given large amounts of antibiotics over almost two years to combat her tonsillitis. He figured that her gut biome could have been starved and diminished by the antibiotics….

Gordon Parker of the University of NSW’s psychiatry faculty said Jane’s recovery through FMT was one of the most exciting developments in his 50 years of psychiatry….
Professor Parker said the fact that FMT — a procedure already approved to manage a severe gut infection — did cure Jane’s bipolar could represent a paradigm shift in the way some mental illnesses were treated.,,
He has since written a book, A Gut Mood Solution, presenting five FMT case studies other than Jane’s, including one of his own patients. Two of those people have experienced remission.
“The concept of our gut microbiome and how that might be actually influencing our mood for the worst or for the better is the new paradigm and that has huge implications in terms of managing mood disorders,” Professor Parker says…

It confounds Jane that the Food and Mood Centre has been unable to attract funding for a clinical trial despite being ready to launch after conducting a successful pilot study based on her case.
“If we can show with clinical trials that faecal transplant could help a large proportion of people with serious mental illness, the social impact will be huge, but also the financial impact,” she says.
****************
https://www.nist.gov/health/future-medicine-your-poop
The power of poop comes from the microbes it contains. They are a rich sampling of the trillions of microbes living inside our gut, all part of the gut microbiome. In the last decade, scientists have linked the gut microbiome to a raft of human diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, bacterial infections, autoimmune disorders, obesity and even cancer and mental illness.
Isolating fecal microbes and then turning them into therapies may be a way to treat many of these diseases. In fact, the FDA has recently approved two drugs for treating recurring bacterial infections, both of which are derived from highly processed human stool samples…

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