So-called 'super-donors' could help fecal transplantation become a treatment for Alzheimer's disease - which is associated with changes in gut bacteria.

Fecal transplants could help treat Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, asthma, and other diseases, say scientists from the University of Auckland.

While the practice is already routinely used to cure recurrent diarrhoea, Dr Justin O'Sullivan of the university's Liggins Institute said new trials with so-called "super donors" could unlock fecal transplantation's potential to treat other conditions associated with gut bacteria.

Super-donors' stool samples have "a higher microbial diversity" which improves the chances for successful transplantation, the molecular biologist said.

When bacteria from a healthy gut enters a sick patient, it can outcompete the dangerous microbes even when antibiotics have failed to kill them before – which is the rationale behind fecal transplants.

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The transplants have a more than 90 per cent success rate in treating recurrent diarrhoea and a closer to 20 per cent success rate in improving the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease and type two diabetes.

"We see transplants from super-donors achieve clinical remission rates of perhaps double the remaining average," O'Sullivan said.

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"Our hope is that if we can discover how this happens, then we can improve the success of fecal transplantation and even trial it for new microbiome-associated conditions like Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and asthma."

O'Sullivan and his colleagues have published their research into the super-donor phenomenon in medical journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.