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Researcher whose racing took off after faecal transplant says they could be the future of doping

After suffering for a decade with Lyme Disease, suddenly she was winning races – and all it took was someone else’s faeces…

A microbiologist who suddenly found herself winning bike races after getting a faecal transplant from a competitive cyclist says that this will soon become an area where athletes seek to gain an advantage. “I think I can say with confidence that bacterial doping – call it poop doping, if you must – is coming soon,” said Lauren Petersen.

Petersen works at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut, investigating he human microbiome – the collection of microorganisms which live on us. She is particularly interested in the gut microbiology of cyclists.

Speaking to nourishbalancethrive.com she explained: “All those microbes in your gut are performing amazing metabolic functions that your own body actually can't do – so, breaking down a lot of the different fibres and resistant starches and things like that – and they're providing all sorts of very important metabolites for us, certain vitamins, short chain fatty acids. Without your microbes, you'd be very, very unhealthy.”

Bicycling.com reports that Petersen contracted Lyme Disease when she was 11 and after suffering for more than a decade, she had her gut sequenced by the American Gut Project. “I had no microbes to help me break down food, and I had picked up bugs in the lab where I was working because my system was so weak and susceptible.”

The repeated doses of antibiotics had pretty much wiped out her entire gut microbiome. “I ended up with pretty bad chronic fatigue syndrome, really bad issues with my stomach – I mean, just the ability to digest food,” she said.

Petersen said that she then underwent a faecal transplant from a competitive cyclist – a procedure she carried out herself.

“In 24 hours after finishing antibiotics, I did the whole thing, which is very, very unpleasant. It's quick. It's simple. And within a month, I started feeling a lot better. Even in the literature, they say if you're going to do this kind of procedure, it takes between two to four months for you to really feel the effects. So, within a month, I was starting to eat normally again. And then within two months, I got back on my bike and the effects there were instantaneous.”

She said of her first ride: “After doing like two hours that day, the next day I got out and I'm like, let's just see how I feel. And I got on my bike and I could just do it right away again.”

She went from training twice a week to five days a week and after a month had “more energy than I knew what to do with.”

Six months after the transplant, she did her first enduro race and finished “third or fourth”. The one after that, she won – and she says she’s been winning consistently ever since.

“I wondered if I had gotten my microbiome from a couch potato, not a racer, if I would I be doing so well,” she said. "Then it made me wonder what the best possible microbiome for a racer would be.”

Petersen founded the Athlete Microbiome Project and is now collecting stool and saliva samples from professional cyclists in an attempt to understand how their microbiomes may differ from those of the general population.

She cites as one example Prevotella, a microorganism that she received in her own transplant, which is apparently almost always seen in elite racers but in less than 10 per cent of non-athletes.

But there is plenty more to study than that. “You have a certain community of microbes. Maybe you're missing a few that are really good at breaking down pasta or certain kinds of fibres because that leads to better energy transfer.”

So an obvious shortcut is to import them. But even so – a faecal transplant?

“I'm sure it will be in pill form,” she concludes. “Whether you swallow it or it goes up the other end that will be the question.”

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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14 comments

Avatar
ColT | 6 years ago
1 like

Okay, I'll bite.

What a load of sh1t. 

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Leviathan | 6 years ago
5 likes

Can we just address this 'You are mostly bacteria' myth. Yes, by number, bacteria cells outnumber human cells, however, our own cells are HUGE compared to gut bacteria. In no way is your body like a mouldy tea bag, just festering with bacteria, you are still mostly you. Your gut is like a free market economy with roles being filled by efficient sub-contractors. If required you could quite easily have evolved to encode the DNA required to digest most food stuffs, but evolution doesn't work like that. A lot of extra DNA can lead to unwanted mutations. We have the bacteria because it is an efficient symbiosis.*

I don't see why this would be comparable with doping, the microbiome can already be changed by diet anyway. There is no clear evidence that it is being done and how would you know what was ideal? I can see one person with a history of digestive issues gaining a lot, but a top level athlete already on a strict diet? Unless you want to believe that Froome is boosting his lieutenants like some poop octopus in the blacked out Sky bus.

apologies to David Mitchell for my homage rant.

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Penny_Lane_Cyclist | 6 years ago
1 like

I have a few local KOMs.
I'll see you mine for £500 per poo..

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
1 like

This explains those saddles with big holes/channels in them.

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BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
3 likes

They've being talking about introducing good gut bacteria through this method for some years for people with crohn's  disease like myself.

What it does, or what they say it does is in effect bring you back to a normal uneffected state so you are medically similar to everyone else who isn't suffering, so of course you are able to do more, improve physically and potentially win.

for people that are suffering with ailments that can have devastating effects, it not just improves your life physically but has a huge change on your mental health too. Having to cope with symptoms every day and/or flare ups that make you feel unwell or restrict what you can do and when is extremely difficult at times.

I wouldn't see this as doping but rebalancing those that might have had a chance at competing if they hadn't had a bad roll of the dice.

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Rich_cb | 6 years ago
5 likes

If this is true then on some random Italian roadside a certain Dutchman has left a steaming pile of extra watts.

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Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
1 like

Sky will be onto this. Natural breaks will never be the same.

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Jackson replied to Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
2 likes
Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Sky will be onto this. Natural breaks will never be the same.

What do you think was in the jiffy bag?

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StraelGuy | 6 years ago
0 likes

Agreed. There was a prog on Radio 4 a few months back about this exact issue although more people who'd had bad diseases rather than the performance enhancing effect. I knew bacteria basically run your GI tract but I didn't know to what extent. Apparently, of all the living cells that constitute 'you', only about 20% are human, the rest are gut bacteria.

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check12 | 6 years ago
0 likes

Important after a course of antibiotics have cleared out the gut 

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racyrich | 6 years ago
1 like
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handlebarcam | 6 years ago
1 like

If this takes off it will be the one instance where omerta would be a blessing.

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The _Kaner replied to handlebarcam | 6 years ago
1 like

handlebarcam wrote:

If this takes off it will be the one instance where omerta would be a blessing.

Surely you mean 'oh merde ah'...???

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peted76 | 6 years ago
1 like

“You have a certain community of microbes." - yes Lauren Petersen, it's the road.cc comments section! 

 

 

Daft as it may be, I quite like where this research is going..  oh no not like that.. I didn't mean it like that! 

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