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Scientists Say Baby Poop Is A Good Source Of Probiotics

By Njideka Agbo
27 August 2018   |   5:00 am
Unlike an adult's poop, a baby’s pop, scientists have discovered, contains bacteria that can be used in the treatment of diseases especially diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders and cancer. In a study Human-origin probiotic cocktail increases short-chain fatty acid production via modulation of mice and human gut microbiome published in the Scientific Reports on the 23…

Unlike an adult’s poop, a baby’s pop, scientists have discovered, contains bacteria that can be used in the treatment of diseases especially diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders and cancer.

In a study Human-origin probiotic cocktail increases short-chain fatty acid production via modulation of mice and human gut microbiome published in the Scientific Reports on the 23 of August, researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine gathered poop from diapers of little children and fed it to mice and what they discovered was quite interesting.

Baby pop contains good bacteria and lots of probiotics that can balance out the gut health. To conduct the research, they used the faeces of 34 babies. After a series of “isolation, characterization and safety validation of infant gut-origin Lactobacillus and Enterococcus strains with probiotic attributes”, the mice were given a dose of the human probiotics as well as five doses of 10-strain (from the come from strains Lactobacillus and Enterococcus) probiotic cocktail while they injected the same dosage in the human faeces medium. Researchers found that the doses enhanced the production of SCFAs (Short-chain fatty acids) in the gut of the mice.

“This work provides evidence that these human-origin probiotics could be exploited as biotherapeutic regimens for human diseases associated with gut microbiome imbalance and decreased SCFA production in the gut,” the lead author of the study Hariom Yadav assistant professor of molecular medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine wrote.

He also hopes that this new source of good bacteria will be looked into so that more research on how to improve the gut health will be made readily available.

Who knows? We might be seeing baby poop drinks in no time.

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