The microbiome in patients having a Stem Cell Transplant is seriously damaged by the high levels of chemotherapy drugs, antiviral, anti fungal drugs and antibiotics; but autologous fecal transplants from the patient’s own stored feces seem a potential and quick resolution.
Patients with Lymphoma, Multiple Myeloma or Leukemia may well be offered a stem cell transplant, sooner or later. This treatment first employs a massive dose of chemotherapy drugs to kill off the patient’s problem cells and then, before during and following the transplant, because of the fear of infection, anti-viral, anti-fungal and antibiotic drugs are the norm. All this devastates the patient’s microbiome.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center scientists, Dr. Ying Taur, Dr. Eric Pamer, and Dr. Joao Xavier were interested in whether the patient’s microbiome was regenerated quickly, or whether it needed some help. Results appeared in Science Translational Medicine on September 26, 2018. The studies were sponsored by the NCI and the NIH (1).
Fecal samples were taken from a large number of patients before any treatment took place and these were stored in a frozen state.
One to five weeks after the Stem Cell Transplant when the transplanted cells were confirmed as being ‘established’, the first 25 patients without beneficial bacteria in their guts were divided into 14 who received their own faeces (feces) back via an enema, and 11 who carried on in the normal way in standard care, picking bacteria up from their environment.
The differences were quite enormous. 79% of those who received the autologous fecal enemas recovered to 75% or more of the microbiome levels they had had before all treatment . However, only 27% of standard care patients recovered to that level. Furthermore, the fecal transplant group were restored in day or two but with standard care the patients took many weeks to recover to minimum levels.
Chris Woollams, the author of best seller 'Heal your Gut - Heal your Body, and a former Oxford University Biochemist said, “This has been something we have been extremely concerned about for a good few years. Especially in the UK, no attention is paid to the microbiome. Instead, Stem Cell Transplant teams keep patients on antibiotics and antivirals for months, telling them not to touch probiotics, unpasteurised foods and even organic vegetables. They don’t seem to have the first clue that you need your microbiome – it is essential to your good health. Instead, they keep the patients microbiome-deficient for months.
This research showed that the fecal transplant group, in genetic tests, had a functioning microbiome in days and this might be only two to three weeks after the actual SCT took place.
In Personal Prescriptions we have always tried to rebuild a cancer patient’s damaged microbiome, whatever the cancer, but especially after Stem Cell Transplants. UK oncologists just seem to want to keep their patients in limbo, worrying that they will pick up an infection. They even stop patients taking a probiotic pill. Mine is checked at the labs; it contains no bad bacteria. It simply doesn't make sense to delay a gut rebuild - it makes patients more likely to pick up an infection.
The one thing I would quibble with in this study is that they made an assumption that the original microbiome in the fecal transplant was 100% healthy. It most often isn’t and could well have contributed to the cancer in the first place. This is why our gut healing programme has two clear phases. We use herb extracts such as artemisinin, oregano oil and Para Free Plus to kill off the bad, while creating acid gut conditions and introducing my specially designed Probio8 Max, along with probiotic foods and prebiotic foods aplenty. We do sometimes suggest patients use fecal microbiome transplants but the market is in its infancy in the UK and early results show some concerns.”
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References
- https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fecal-transplants-restore-gut-microbes-after-antibiotics
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