So You Thought Eating Poop Was Bad For You?

Yesterday I got a package in the mail: My mum had sent me a red nose. I can imagine you are thinking “sweet!” or “what?” or “why?” or a combination of all these emotions, so I will respond to them all. Yes, it is awesome, and I proceeded to wear it as I drove around town running errands. It is a squishy red clown nose with a smiley face on it that gently pinches onto your own boring nose and makes it look sillier.

These noses are produced by the charity Comic Relief, who every couple of years put on Red Nose Day, a national awareness drive in the U.K. that culminates in an evening of televised comedy. In the weeks leading up to Red Nose Day, noses are sold in shops everywhere for a pound (currency, not the weight of some random item you would like to barter) and the money goes towards helping people all over the world who live in poverty. And I’m guessing she sent it to me in a general spirit of comic relief; after all, I am in grad school…

But why am I bringing all this up? One of the many things Comic Relief does is that it goes to 3^rd world countries and helps the victims of famine. We’ve all seen those commercials made by various charities with footage of emaciated, swollen-bellied children. Until today I had no idea what caused that swelling, but now I do, so I’m going to tell you about the disease and a potential cure.

The condition is called kwashiorkor. The name originated in Ghana, and loosely translated means a disease contracted by one baby when the mother has to start breast-feeding a newborn. Breast milk is rich in proteins and essential nutrients, whereas the typical African diet of maize and vegetables is not. Interestingly, kwashiorkor does not affect every child born into poverty in Africa, suggesting there might be more to this disease than simply malnutrition.

At a recent conference in Vancouver, postdoc Michelle Smith from Washington University in St. Louis presented some new data concerning the role of gut flora in the development of kwashiorkor. She and her colleagues tracked the development of 371 pairs of twins in Malawi from birth until the age of three. They found that in 50% of cases only one of the twins developed kwashiorkor, and in only 7% of cases did both twins develop the disease.

This strongly argued against both a genetic cause and any environmental factors likely to impact both twins, such as the availability or quality of their food. Smith therefore formulated the hypothesis that perhaps the gut flora of each twin was to blame, and set about testing the idea in a mouse model.

She took fecal samples from various pairs of twins in which one had developed kwashiorkor and the other had remained healthy, and used them to colonize the guts of mice raised in such a way that they had no flora of their own. The mice were then fed a Malawian diet and monitored for weight loss. It turned out that the mice that received bacteria from the kwashiorkor twin had an increased rate of weight loss compared to the “healthy” mice. In addition, the researchers also asked how well the mice responded to high-protein therapeutic food. The sick mice quickly gained weight, but just as quickly lost it when returned to starchy maize. In contrast, mice with gut flora from the healthy twin showed more a more modest increase in weight when given the nutrient-rich food, suggesting a more stable nutrient uptake situation in their digestive tract.

While this study is still preliminary, it points to a potential treatment for affected children in the third world. Aid packages provided by charities could contain high protein foods supplemented with bacteria to help repopulate gut flora. Here in the western world we are already exploiting this idea. Fecal transplants, while a little gross to think about, have helped many people suffering from digestive problems acquired after long periods of antibiotic treatment.

And finally, if you’re reading this in the U.K. go and buy your red nose. Red Nose Day is this Friday, March 18^th.

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Katie Pratt is a graduate student in Molecular Biology at Brown University. She has a passion for science communication, and in an attempt to bring hardcore biology and medicine to everyone, she blogs jargon-free at www.katiephd.com. Follow her escapades in the lab and online on Twitter.

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Miss a previous edition of Mind the Gap? We’ve got you covered:

Are Fatty Acids the Cure for PMS?

Botanical Sleuthing Recovered Endangered Daisy

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