There are better ways to acquire a young glow than taking a blood bath, applying snail mucus on your face, or soaking in antler blood.
What’s going to be next in anti-aging fads? Scientists speculate that feces transplants might be the answer.
It was reported this week in the journal Microbiome that transferring fecal microbiota from younger to older mice improved the health of the recipient mice’s digestive tracts.
After the surgery, the elder mice showed improvements in their eyesight, digestion, and cognitive abilities, as researchers at the Quadram Institute reported.
It’s not a new idea to take care of the microorganisms in your gut to slow down the aging process; in 2021, the US National Institute of Health reported that an individual’s gut microbiome was associated with a long and healthy life span.
The Microbiome, however, is very diverse, and none of these medicines has been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. If the results of the current research hold up, they might form the foundation for a clinical trial approved by the FDA, but only if further testing is conducted on human subjects.
Not to mention, even Quadram cautioned against jumping to conclusions and forgetting that these tests were conducted just on mice. Of course, both elderly people and mice have digestive systems, but they serve different purposes.
The conclusion is that fecal transplant studies at home should be postponed till further notice.
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