You’ll Never Believe What’s in the Latest Diet Pill

Gut Health, Health, Microbiome, Research -

You’ll Never Believe What’s in the Latest Diet Pill

Harvard researchers will test poop in a pill as a treatment for obesity.

The first tests involved glass jars in paper bags, blenders, and enemas.

Work to find the magic bullet for weight loss has led to some unexpected places.

Most recently, researchers have focused on whether harvesting the gut bacteria from thin people’s poop and transplanting it in those who are seriously overweight might do the trick.

Fecal transplant has been a strange area of research, pioneered first for people suffering from the chronic, hard-to-treat gastrointestinal infection, C. difficile. The first tests involved glass jars in paper bags, blenders, and enemas.

No more.

A Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial led by Harvard researchers will provide freeze-dried gut bacteria from healthy, lean volunteers to obese study participants in double-lined capsules to see if the bacteria colonize in the participants’ guts and lead to weight loss.

“The pills are odorless, tasteless, and double-encapsulated to ensure they will not release until they reach the right location in the large intestine,” lead researcher Dr. Elaine Yu told the New York Daily News.