Coming soon to a health store near you?

October 9, 2014 3:49 AM

AS THE SUN set over Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, nearly thirty minutes had passed since I had inserted a turkey baster into my bum and injected the feces of a Hadza man – a member of one of the last remaining hunter-gatherers tribes in the world – into the nether regions of my distal colon. I struggled to keep my legs in the air with my toes pointing towards what I thought was the faint outline of the Southern Cross rising in the evening sky. With my hands under my hips – and butt perched against a large rock for support – I peddled an imaginary upside down bicycle in the air to pass the time as I struggled to make sure my new gut ecosystem stayed put inside me.

Jeff Leach's attention grabbing opening starts a fascinating overview about researching gut fauna, microbiomes and the hunter-gatherer diet of the Hadza people of Tanzania in the quest to rediscover humanity's "natural" guts.

John Hawks is unimpressed however:

For another thing, the Hadza have their own long evolutionary history. Their diet is merely one representative of the marked dietary diversity of recent hunter-gatherers. Other foraging groups, for example, the Ache of Paraguay, have a very different dietary composition. The study of these microbiomes is scientifically very interesting, and we may discover commonalities among them. But the idea that the microbiome of any Hadza person represents an "ancestral" or "healthy" human population is nonsense.

posted by MartinWisse (56 comments total)

Nope.
posted by Aversion Therapy at 3:58 AM on October 9, 2014

Man, it is always a turkey baster.
posted by jadepearl at 4:19 AM on October 9, 2014 [14 favorites]

We need a donor.
posted by murphy slaw at 4:41 AM on October 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Man, is there nothing whitey won't steal?
posted by Devonian at 5:00 AM on October 9, 2014 [86 favorites]

It seems a little premature, since he wrote the piece before even knowing if the fecal transplant worked or not. I'd also be curious if he ran this by his IRB or just decided to do it on his own?
posted by Dip Flash at 5:01 AM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Unless that was a jet-powered turkey baster, he didn't come close to getting the job done. Fecal transplants aren't performed by just inserting the donor stool into the rectum and letting it stew there for a bit. Oh, no. It's usually piped directly into the stomach via a nasogastric tube, to ensure that the whole gut gets coated as it passes through. So if you simply must stick someone else's poop inside you, at least have a trained gastroenterologist assist you.
posted by informavore at 5:03 AM on October 9, 2014 [27 favorites]

So I have this idea for a The Gods Must Be Crazy reboot…
posted by aw_yiss at 5:05 AM on October 9, 2014 [22 favorites]

Members of hunter-gatherer cultures must cherish trading stories about white folks doing crazy, crazy shit.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:07 AM on October 9, 2014 [27 favorites]

So, no jet powered turkey baster means half-assed job? OK I am going, now.
posted by jadepearl at 5:13 AM on October 9, 2014 [11 favorites]

This is the weirdest porn.

Dear Nature,
I never thought it would happen to me...
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:24 AM on October 9, 2014 [19 favorites]

"Oh, so you think your paleo diet is hardcore?"
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:24 AM on October 9, 2014 [15 favorites]

Finally there is a point to my shit eating grin!
posted by srboisvert at 5:57 AM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I have a half-baked theory that most of our gut biome, with probably a few important or troublesome exceptions, comes from the food we eat. They've already shown that vegetarians have less meat-chomping bacteria. It makes sense that if you change your diet, the bacteria that loved what you used to eat will get starved out, and bacteria that love what you're eating now will be good at finding it and getting ready for a ride into your intestines before you put it in your mouth.

There are some super-flexible bacteria like E. coli that'll always be there, of course.

Oh, wait... seems like I'm well behind the times:

In the study, participants who switched from their normal diet to eating only animal products, including meat, cheese and eggs, saw their gut bacteria change rapidly — within one day.

So unless Jeff Leach sticks to a Hadza diet after he comes home, he could lose any bacteria that he did get (probably not many, as informavore points out) within a couple of days.
posted by clawsoon at 6:01 AM on October 9, 2014 [7 favorites]

Fecal transplants aren't performed by just inserting the donor stool into the rectum and letting it stew there for a bit.

Its not just gonna stew there. Its gonna make its way up-intestine, getting a tour of the horrors of colonization, in order to find Kernel Kurtz and terminate his command.
posted by condour75 at 6:01 AM on October 9, 2014 [47 favorites]

This gives a whole new meaning to "African colonization".
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:07 AM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

It's good when people give a shit.
posted by jonmc at 6:15 AM on October 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

While the Hadza are not living fossils, nor in anyway represent a perfect referent population for early human evolution, their hunting and foraging lifestyle and constant contact with the natural microbial world, natural births, extended breast feeding and limited access to western medications, makes them one of the better populations in the world for trying to understand what our ancestral microbes may have once looked like, where we got them and at what point in our life history we acquired them, before the rest of us ran gut first into the buzz saw of globalization.

OK. I buy this as an interesting justification for studying the microbiome of the Hadza. In paleontology and studies of human evolution, a lot of the arguing has to be done through analogy. But that is a stupid justification for trying to change your microbiome to a Hadza microbiome.

So for me, and my little transplant experiment with a Hadza hunter gatherer still living at microbial ground zero for all humans, I wanted to know if my western diet and lifestyle could rapidly destroy this newly acquired diversity in a short period of time. Since the human genome contains ~23,000 genes and our whole-body microbiome accounts for another staggering 5-10 million genes – most of which our deep in our gut – my distal gut ecosystem restoration project attempted to replace 99% of the genes in my body.

Again, if you squint with me for a minute, could I simulate 10,000 years of human history – from the transition of hunter-gatherer to agriculturalists, to crowded conditions of civilizations, to indoor plumbing, to the introduction of antibiotics and antimicrobial soaps, to Lady Gaga – all in a short few months with my fecal transplant?

But ... whether or not your implanted Hadza microbiome does that has basically nothing to do with how the human microbiome has evolved in response to changes like switching to agriculture. That is also a stupid reason to do a fecal transplant.

This whole thing is, however, a great piece of publicity for their project. I think? I don't know if the project really wants people's first association to be "Oh yeah, they stick Hadza poop up their butts FOR SCIENCE." But it's an association, I guess.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:15 AM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also, what are the chances that the Hadza have developed tolerance for some bug that'll make Leach's immune system have a violent reaction and make him violently ill?

This should be a reality TV show. So many dramatic possibilities!
posted by clawsoon at 6:22 AM on October 9, 2014

I'd also be curious if he ran this by his IRB or just decided to do it on his own?

Interestingly, there is disagreement about whether self-experimentation is subject to the Common Rule that governs biomedical ethics in the U.S. It might not mention self-experimentation. Some authorities say this means there is no exception to the need for IRB approval of self-experimentation—for example, "Guidance Regarding Self-Experimentation of Researchers as Study Subjects", Health Sciences Institutional Review Boards, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Others believe that the language as written excludes self-experimentation—for example, Law in the Laboratory: A Guide to the Ethics of Federally Funded Science, Robert P. Charrow. Although note that Charrow contacted the Office for Human Research Protections and their view was that self-experimentation was covered. It's probably not a good idea for a federally-funded researcher to go against their interpretation.
posted by grouse at 6:39 AM on October 9, 2014 [9 favorites]

Interestingly, there is disagreement about whether self-experimentation is subject to the Common Rule that governs biomedical ethics in the U.S. It might not mention self-experimentation.

Interesting, though I figured that borrowing someone's fresh poop would trigger informed consent questions as well. I also wonder if he might run afoul of host country laws meant to protect that country's genomic heritage (e.g. the controversy about quinoa) -- no one is currently thinking of poop as a resource, but if drug companies started making billions selling hunter gather poop biomes, perhaps attitudes would change.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on October 9, 2014

"a lot of the arguing has to be done through analogy" When you said this I had to take a second to look up if there was a "study of anals" you were referring to. Just in case...

(And the answer is no... for anyone else... curious about... anal--ogy) But I can't stop giggling.
posted by xarnop at 6:51 AM on October 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Let's be mature, people. This is a very serious fecal matter.
posted by dr_dank at 6:58 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

To me it's been hilarious watching people just unquestioningly get all enthusiastic about this guy. I'm really glad John Hawks wrote that post. Jeff Leach has a long history as what I'd consider someone who uses archaeology/anthropology in ways that mainly benefit his pocketbock :

The State of Texas, through its Attorney General's office, filed a
Petition against Jeffrey D. Leach for violations of Deceptive Trade
Practices Act and injury to consumers. The damages requested in the
Petition include the payment of civil penalties of $2,000.00 per
violation, not to exceed a total of $10,000.00; pay restitution; pay
pre-judgment interest on all awards of restitution, damages or civil
penalties, as provided by law; pay all costs of Court, costs of
investigations and reasonable attorney’s fees; and payment of post-
judgment interest. Additionally, the total damages listed regarding
the canceled trip to Egypt is $111,218.75.

The whole fecal transplant thing has a lot of promise as a medical treatment, but at this point it is way overhyped and has been adopted by the quack medicine community a little too enthusiastically.
posted by melissam at 7:11 AM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

Paging Dr. Brinkley. Dr. Brinkley, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

Also paging feckless fecal fear mongering...
posted by Naberius at 7:18 AM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

This should be a reality TV show. So many dramatic possibilities!

It will be called "But I'm Not Gay, Bro!" each week a dude will think up an elaborate new justification for sticking things up his ass while a panel of judges critiques his hetero-normativity.
posted by ennui.bz at 7:20 AM on October 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

Oh god, I first read the fpp title as, "Coming soon to a health food store near you?"
posted by ardgedee at 7:31 AM on October 9, 2014

The State of Texas, through its Attorney General's office, filed a Petition against Jeffrey D. Leach for violations of Deceptive Trade Practices Act and injury to consumers.

Interesting. Whatever happened with that case?
posted by grouse at 7:32 AM on October 9, 2014

Nope.
posted by Aversion Therapy

It's working!
posted by sneebler at 7:44 AM on October 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

There's actually a new diet out that purports to target Iasting weight loss by using carefully selected foods to alter the microbiome. I wonder is that a real thing or just this year's model of diet silliness?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:51 AM on October 9, 2014

I wonder how long it will take to understand the human microbiome, given that it's already starting to attract this kind of self-promoting scientist, and various flavours of diet quackery?
posted by sneebler at 7:55 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Leach is, at best, foolish. For a better pop-science article about gut flora try this one at WIRED, which is based on this article in Nature.

WIRED also did a short but much less breathless piece on the Hadza, see here.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:56 AM on October 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

DirtyOldTown: There's actually a new diet out that purports to target Iasting weight loss by using carefully selected foods to alter the microbiome. I wonder is that a real thing or just this year's model of diet silliness?

According to the microbiologists I've talked to who are working on gut flora, we don't know nearly enough to do much of anything therapeutically. So I'm betting on diet silliness.
posted by clawsoon at 8:03 AM on October 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Its not just gonna stew there. Its gonna make its way up-intestine, getting a tour of the horrors of colonization, in order to find Kernel Kurtz and terminate his command.

Abuttcalypse Now
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2014

Does anyone ever use them for actually basting turkeys?
posted by gottabefunky at 9:15 AM on October 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

No, they are only for butts now.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:25 AM on October 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

And making babies.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:29 AM on October 9, 2014

no that's what caulking guns are for
posted by poffin boffin at 9:35 AM on October 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

a Hadza hunter gatherer still living at microbial ground zero for all humans,

Those prelapsarian metaphors just won't go away, will they?
posted by jokeefe at 9:38 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

microbial ground zero for all human

Here's another ironic thing: DNA repair mechanisms work less well in microbes than they do in humans, and microbes replicate rapidly, so any microbe population that you find anywhere will likely be very different from what was in human guts half a million years ago; much more different than we are from our ancestors, certainly.
posted by clawsoon at 9:57 AM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Caulking guns are just innuendo made physical. I don't think anyone actually uses them for their stated purpose.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:10 AM on October 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Wrong! I have probably done irreparable harm to my grip with a caulking gun. Why don't they make them for my delicate lady paws?

And I question all the science of someone who thinks application with hand-squeeze-bulb turkey-baster is adequate to affect, let alone recolonize gut flora. Turkey-basters are passe. He should have used a silicon pastry brush.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 10:53 AM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

... the quest to rediscover humanity's "natural" guts.

No. Such. Thing.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:01 AM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

One way or the other, this dude is full of shit.
posted by stenseng at 11:15 AM on October 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

♫ Chain chain chain, chain of stools ...♬

While the general dogma is that the placental barrier keeps infants sterile throughout pregnancy, increasing evidence suggests that an infant's initial inoculum can be provided by its mother before birth [14]–[18] and is supplemented by maternal microbes through the birthing [19] and breastfeeding [20],[21] processes.

posted by jamjam at 11:27 AM on October 9, 2014

Considering everything I've read indicates that butt-flora is a giant mix of good, bad and indifferent "stuff" held in balance by things not yet fully understood. I can't help imagining the outcome of this will be the two microbomes duking it out in this guys poop chute until all that's left are the harmful bacteria on each side, at which point the survivors join forces and eat him from the inside out.
posted by kjs3 at 1:08 PM on October 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

the outcome of this will be the two microbomes duking it out in this guys poop chute until all that's left are the harmful bacteria on each side, at which point the survivors join forces and eat him from the inside out.

Cf. Tarrare:

He was described as having unusually soft fair hair, and an abnormally wide mouth in which his teeth were heavily stained,[11] and on which the lips were almost invisible.[12][13] When he had not eaten his skin would hang so loosely that he could wrap the fold of skin from his abdomen around his waist,[11][12] and when full his abdomen would distend "like a huge balloon".[8] The skin of his cheeks was wrinkled and hung loosely, and when stretched out he was able to hold twelve eggs or apples in his mouth.[13][14] His body was hot to the touch and he sweated heavily and constantly suffered from foul body odour;[11][13] he was described as "stinking to such a degree that he could not be endured at twenty paces".[13] This smell would get noticeably worse after he had eaten,[12][13] his eyes and cheeks would become bloodshot,[11] a visible vapour would rise from his body,[13] and he would become lethargic, during which time he would belch noisily and his jaws would make swallowing motions.[13] He suffered from chronic diarrhoea, which was said to be "fetid beyond all conception".[13] Despite his large intake of food he did not appear either to vomit excessively or to gain weight.[15] Aside from his eating habits, his contemporaries saw no apparent signs of mental illness or unusual behaviour in him,[15] other than an apparently apathetic temperament, with "a complete lack of force and ideas".[4][13]
...
At the autopsy, Tarrare's gullet was found to be abnormally wide, and when his jaws were opened surgeons could see down a broad canal into the stomach.[20] His body was found to be filled with pus;[16] his liver and gallbladder were abnormally large,[16] and the stomach was enormous, covered in ulcers,[12] and filled most of the abdominal cavity.[16][19] The fork was never found.[21

posted by jamjam at 1:34 PM on October 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

butts lol
posted by Melismata at 2:32 PM on October 9, 2014

In the Scramble for My Small Intestine I have been colon-ized by all the Great Powers.
posted by um at 3:52 PM on October 9, 2014

at least have a trained gastroenterologist assist you

If the gastroenterologist doesn't want to insert your nasogastric tube for you, do they tell you to go eat shit?
posted by yohko at 7:03 PM on October 9, 2014

I suppose they might.
posted by yohko at 7:07 PM on October 9, 2014

borrowing someone's fresh poop would trigger informed consent questions

From my own Certified IRB Professional standpoint, absolutely. You don't get to collect biospecimens for research without the informed consent of the donor.

Whether or not he would need IRB approval to stick shit in his own ass is a slightly different question. grouse is correct in that, generally, the FDA and OHRP don't make a distinction between a research subject that is part of the study team or not. The requirements of informed consent and sundry other protections would apply. (Fun fact: the Nuremberg Code specified barred conducting experiments with the possibility of death or serious injury... unless the experimenters also took part.)

The wrinkle here would be if Leach planned on putting the poop in other people's poopers, or was only doing this to himself. In that case, what we are dealing with is a project with an n of 1, which is not generally something that falls under the IRB's purview. Per OHRP (and the Common Rule), the IRB only reviews projects which include "human subjects" and can be considered "research." That latter term is further defined as being "systematic" and "generalizable." Putting aside the issue of how systematic Leach's suppository adventure was, the results of experimentation on a single subject is not typically considered generalizable except in very limited circumstances (such as extremely rare diseases). So this could conceivably fall outside IRB review under the Common Rule.

The issue of whether such an escapade would fall under the FDA's jurisdiction, and thus require IRB review, is a slightly murkier question. Use of an investigational product or approved product in an investigational manner, would trigger review, even if the number of subjects is quite small. The example I bring up from my own IRB is of a polio researcher who wanted to deliberately infect himself with the virus, since he had some twinkles of evidence that it could help fight his rapidly approaching terminal cancer. The virus would come from his own lab and he was only proposing to do this to himself, but it was determined to fall under the oversight of the FDA, so needed review. Fecal transplants, however, aren't very well defined in the FDA regs.

Regardless, sticking someone's potentially parasite carrying feces in your rectum in a misguided attempt to recreate an imaginary state of humanity's "original" microflora is mind-numbingly stupid.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:36 AM on October 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

An example of how harmful this kind of thing can be is the case of Marcus Volke, who has been in the news for a grisly murder-suicide involving cooking his girlfriend. He was an active participant in the alternative health online community and some of the last updates he made were about seeking a fecal transplant that he hoped would finally cure him of his mental and physical health issues. He never saw a doctor or psychiatrist for these issues, believing they were "scam artists." And sadly people from the alt health community encouraged these beliefs.
posted by melissam at 10:01 AM on October 10, 2014

Oh for fuck's sake. I don't think dude wanting a poop swap caused him to go cannibal swedish chef on his girlfriend, or had anything to do with it, other than maybe a side effect of being batshit in general.
posted by stenseng at 4:04 PM on October 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't think it caused him to commit crimes, but the community's encouragement of him seeking out a fecal transplant (done outside a medical setting) and disparagement of things like psychiatric drugs certainly did him no favors.
posted by melissam at 5:23 PM on October 10, 2014

I wonder if he thinks he should have waited since you can now get your fecal transplant in pill form. Basically, no need to baste nor taste your solution.
posted by jadepearl at 7:33 PM on October 12, 2014

Also, there are serious concerns about DIY fecal therapy. Here's an overview with some warnings about why you shouldn't try this at home.

Now put down that turkey baster! You don't know where it's been.
posted by sneebler at 10:31 AM on October 18, 2014