Human milk
Due to the somewhat limited research and availability of FMT I was thinking of alternative ways to perform a transplant or modulating the gut. One idea could be to use human breast milk since it contains commensal bacteria from the gut and is literally intended to colonize a person. Bacteria from the gut translocate via the the entero-mammary pathway and the rumen-mammary pathway to the mammary glands. That way the baby can get microbes from the mother via the milk which will colonize its gut. From my understanding though, this does not contain the full microbiome of the mother so it's not as complete as a proper FMT but maybe it could still be useful.
The benefit of this over FMT is that you can drink it and have the bacteria colonize everything from your oral biome all the way down to the large intestine. It can also be consumed in greater quantity than FMT which might be an added benefit. I don't know if there are already mothers selling their milk to other parents who are unable to breastfeed, but if that's the case then this should already be possible to experiment with. Of course the same principles of donor selection for FMT should be applied here as well though to avoid the transfer of diseases and antibiotic resistant bacteria etc. So choosing a donor should be done with caution.
Cow milk
Another alternative with less stigma and higher availability would be to simply buy raw milk. Cow microbes are of course different from human's but this is how we consumed milk up until the invention of pasteurization. Assuming the milk comes from a serious farm with high sanitation and no antibiotic use, raw milk should be fine (but don't take this for granted, campylobacter, salmonella, antibiotic resistant genes etc. are of serious concern). Raw milk has been found to boost lactobacillus abundance, SCFA production and microbiome richness: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32438623/
Maybe it's not as potent as human milk, but it seems to be enough to modulate the human microbiome and perhaps it can outcompete problematic bacteria and reverse dysbiosis to some degree. There are at least anecdotal evidence online of people who's seen improvement with IBS, inflammation, autism etc. Since it's so accessible it is probably the easiest thing to experiment with and it can also be consumed in very large amounts to really challenge a problematic microbiome. There's no guarantee it will work, but at least dose or availability won't be a problem.
I just had an FMT done recently so I won't do any experiments myself for a while but might consider trying this in the future.
What are your thoughts on these ideas?
Is anyone willing to try?
Has anyone already tried raw milk?
If anyone decides to try any of this, please share you experience here to let other people know about your results or any experienced side effects etc.
Due to the somewhat limited research and availability of FMT I was thinking of alternative ways to perform a transplant or modulating the gut. One idea could be to use human breast milk since it contains commensal bacteria from the gut and is literally intended to colonize a person. Bacteria from the gut translocate via the the entero-mammary pathway and the rumen-mammary pathway to the mammary glands. That way the baby can get microbes from the mother via the milk which will colonize its gut. From my understanding though, this does not contain the full microbiome of the mother so it's not as complete as a proper FMT but maybe it could still be useful.
The benefit of this over FMT is that you can drink it and have the bacteria colonize everything from your oral biome all the way down to the large intestine. It can also be consumed in greater quantity than FMT which might be an added benefit. I don't know if there are already mothers selling their milk to other parents who are unable to breastfeed, but if that's the case then this should already be possible to experiment with. Of course the same principles of donor selection for FMT should be applied here as well though to avoid the transfer of diseases and antibiotic resistant bacteria etc. So choosing a donor should be done with caution.
Cow milk
Another alternative with less stigma and higher availability would be to simply buy raw milk. Cow microbes are of course different from human's but this is how we consumed milk up until the invention of pasteurization. Assuming the milk comes from a serious farm with high sanitation and no antibiotic use, raw milk should be fine (but don't take this for granted, campylobacter, salmonella, antibiotic resistant genes etc. are of serious concern). Raw milk has been found to boost lactobacillus abundance, SCFA production and microbiome richness: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32438623/
Maybe it's not as potent as human milk, but it seems to be enough to modulate the human microbiome and perhaps it can outcompete problematic bacteria and reverse dysbiosis to some degree. There are at least anecdotal evidence online of people who's seen improvement with IBS, inflammation, autism etc. Since it's so accessible it is probably the easiest thing to experiment with and it can also be consumed in very large amounts to really challenge a problematic microbiome. There's no guarantee it will work, but at least dose or availability won't be a problem.
I just had an FMT done recently so I won't do any experiments myself for a while but might consider trying this in the future.
What are your thoughts on these ideas?
Is anyone willing to try?
Has anyone already tried raw milk?
If anyone decides to try any of this, please share you experience here to let other people know about your results or any experienced side effects etc.
