Why Scientists Are Harvesting And Freezing Poop From Around The World

Catalog and preserve the diversity of human gut bacteria.

Here is the mission of Swiss scientists, who have embarked on the collection of excrement from all over the world, reports

 in an article relayed by

.

Collecting, freezing and storing faecal matter from the four corners of the planet would be essential to preserve the bacteriological diversity of humanity.

There are billions of bacteria, fungi and microbes that live in our digestive tract.

A large part of them are beneficial to our health.

But this diversity would be jeopardized by industrialization, urbanization and environmental changes.

Saddles of Ethiopian shepherd children

Public health researcher Abdifatah Muhummed therefore decided to collect stool samples from children from a community of herders in Ethiopia.

The advantage is that the intestinal microbiota of these children is preserved, compared to children living in an urban environment.

By analyzing the stools of these young Ethiopians, the researcher found signs of resistance to antibiotics, even in subjects who had never taken them.

This is due to a change in their diet.

Ethiopian shepherds buy more and more food from the food industry, which changes their intestinal flora.

It is for this reason that it is important to develop a global faeces biobank.

Cultivated, microorganisms could be used to treat diseases.

For the moment, this biobank is limited to a freezer installed in a laboratory in Zurich.

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• Health

• Scientists

• Bacterium

• study

• Swiss