Scientists at UC San Diego Want You to Mail Them Your Poop

He defecates. It’s fun to say, funny to talk about, and serves all purposes com. emoji. But who wants to actually deal with it?

Now, researchers in American Gut Project At the University of California, San Diego, it may give people new incentives not only to keep a stool sample, but to have it packaged and shipped to them. According to Inside Science, a team led by biologist Rob Knight is currently receiving stool samples from the general public to analyze their microbiome profiles.

the Microbiome It is the collection of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that live on and in our bodies BodiesWhich can change in response to lifestyle habits such as: Diet And exercise. Recent research suggests that certain characteristics of the microbiome may make people vulnerable to conditions such as obesity and cancer, and may even affect our bodies. Mental health. Changing the microbiome may have potential health impacts, which is why researchers like Knight are looking to collect data on, in this case, stool.

“Your microbiome weighs about the same as your brain; you’re talking about a few pounds of material,” Knight told Inside Science. “It certainly has more cells, more genes, and is arguably just as complex as your brain. And we’re only just beginning to understand the far-reaching effects it has on the rest of your body.”

Knight says more than 10,000 people have already donated their feces to science as part of the project. And it’s already getting results. In the first publication He studies From the work of the American Gut Project, which appeared in the Journal of the American Society for Microbiology mSystems In May 2018, researchers found that diets rich in plants resulted in a more diverse bacterial colony in the stomach compared to people who ate relatively fewer types of vegetables. Their data also showed some preliminary evidence that people with mental health complaints tend to have similar microbiomes to people who reported the same issues.

Knight and his colleagues would like to analyze your poo in an attempt to gather more information, but there’s a catch: Donors must pay a $99 fee to join the project, an informal type of crowdfunding that keeps the research funded. If you submit a sample—essentially a stool swab taken from used toilet paper—the Human Gut team will send you a personalized microbiome profile and an assessment of how your gut flora compares to the rest of the population. For a progressively larger fee, you may be able to see with better precision how your diet, exercise level and family members’ flora affect your microbiome. They’ll even test your dog’s donations.

You can join this effort here. The Future of Stool Research thanks you for your participation.

(free SF Gate)