Episode 307 — The Microbiome CAN Be Rebuilt
Guest: Jason Klop • Date: May 14, 2026
Episode Overview
Jason Klop from Novel Biome joins the show to discuss the powerful connection between the microbiome, the immune system, and neurological health. He explains how rebuilding missing microbes through microbiome restoration and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) may help support healthier function throughout the body and brain.
About Jason Klop
Jason Klop is the CEO and Founder of Novel Biome, a Health Canada-licensed manufacturer of high-quality FMT products. A retired Naturopathic Doctor, Jason entered the FMT field in 2018 and has since built Novel Biome into a trusted source of on-demand fecal microbiota transplant products for clinicians, hospitals, and researchers worldwide.
Website: https://novelbiome.com
You’ll Discover
Why many children may be missing critical microbes entirely (9:36)
The connection between microbiome disruption and neurological symptoms (2:04)
Why probiotics often fail to create lasting change (20:12)
What engraftment means and why it matters (25:21)
Why rebuilding the microbiome may improve outcomes from other therapies (31:23)
Full Transcript
Jason Klop 0:00
Like a forest, right? When you have a healthy forest, it controls itself. It doesn't require you to keep going in and, like, cutting trees out. No, it requires you to just let the forest do what the forest does, and that's the microbiome. And by doing a transplant, you're essentially, like cleaning the field, putting in new and the full spectrum, not just a very defined by one or two different bacterias the full spectrum, which would include healthy funguses, viruses, parasites.
Len Arcuri 0:28
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be this podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is autism parenting secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello and welcome to autism parenting secrets, the gut, brain connection, it is one of the most important and rapidly evolving areas in medicine today, and many children with neurological, immune, behavioral and developmental challenges also show signs of significant microbiome disruption. And increasingly, researchers and clinicians are asking a deeper question, what happens when critical microbes are missing altogether, not just simply out of balance and not suppressed, but gone. And this has opened the door to a new way of thinking about the gut the brain, and whether restoring missing microbes can help the body function better. And my guest this week is Jason Klopp he's the CEO and founder of novel biome, a company focused on restoring microbial diversity through carefully screened FMT products and precision protocols. And the secret this week is the microbiome can be rebuilt. Welcome Jason.
Jason Klop 1:57
Thank you. Excited to be here and looking forward to unpacking this journey that is the microbiome and the secrets that exist within it.
Len Arcuri 2:06
Yeah, it's an interesting topic. And honestly, with my son, who was diagnosed about 17 years ago, fecal transplants, that concept was out there way back then, it was wildly confusing to me then, and I definitely would appreciate more clarity on how this has evolved and how this could be could be worked in for parents. And I guess maybe that's the best way of starting. If you think about parents who are listening to this, to this podcast, if they're trying to understand why their child is struggling, what do you think most people still fundamentally don't understand about the microbiome and its role in neurological and overall immune health?
Jason Klop 2:48
Sure. Yeah, great question. And I think just to provide a little context in the context of autism and the microbiome, is, is that I spent years treating patients, especially autism patients, using FMT or fecal microbiota transplants. And so I, you know, we've treated hundreds of patients, but then I've spoken to probably 1000s of families, and over that time, you start to see a bit of a trend, and then combining that with what's happening in the research, we get a better idea of what might be happening. But frankly, I think there's more unknowns yet as it relates to the microbiome, especially in the context of autism, but broadly as well. And so we'll cover what we do know, but generally speaking, I mean, kids with autism appear to have at least three times more GI symptoms than their neurotypical peers, and most parents not all. And of course, there are kids that don't have GI issues, but most parents will observe that when their GI symptoms are worse, more constipated or more cramping or bloating or abdominal pain, like anytime their digestive problems are worse, they'll notice a worsening of behaviors. And so that connection is often already made. I've seen with most parents where they've drawn that line. And they say, Oh, well, if I feed my kid, or my kid happens to get a hold of some particular kinds of foods that they know are not good for them, they then have more hyperactivity or anxiety or stimming or aggression, and the list sort of goes on. And so I think that's an obvious tie in what's been more, you know, come to the foreground. More is just the link between how the gut and the brain are communicating. And so through science, we've established that that's an obvious connection. But the reality is, is there's a connection between the gut and essentially every single organ system that exists. And we keep learning about more and more of these axes between these different organ systems that we weren't previously aware of. And so there's even a gut bone, a gut heart, a gut lung, a gut eye. I mean, all of these axes exist. And so how that's exactly happening is yet to be elucidated. Even in the context of the gut, in the brain, we have ideas about how that's happening, but truly, it's not a it's not. Clear, it's not super obvious, but that, in part, makes up what is this magical, amazing and intricately designed system that, when manipulated appropriately, can leave, you know, lead to really outsized outcomes and results, and particularly in the context of the immune system. You know, the immune system is so intricately interconnected with the gut and the gut microbiome. So there's this system called the gut associated lymphatic tissue. It essentially surrounds the whole length of the digestive tract. And so the immune system and the gut are really talking, and what can happen is, if the gut and the microbiome become really dysbiotic. There's a lot of inflammation, it'll start pushing the immune system to be more overactive, or having a disproportionate response to what otherwise would be a normal pathogen. And that was, you know, part of the context of how we met, was that the maps conference, but, but pans pandas being a big part of that, right? Like, why are these kids, a lot of them autistic, having these outside autoimmune type responses to a strep pathogen? Like, it's just not a natural response. And that same thing can happen with foods and all other types of things within the body and system.
Len Arcuri 6:17
Sure, that would include my son's life threatening allergies to peanuts and soy and pretty much other foods. I mean, it's that, it's that immune response that can just be way overreactive, for lack of a better word, when you talk about, when you talk about the gut, though, just to take a step back, if a parent has a child with complex challenges and they're aware the guts important and right? And we can talk at length about why, how the gut isn't in isolation, how interrelated it is to the entire body, particularly the brain. But if a parent's trying to get a sense of, hey, does my child have gut challenges, gut issues, you're right. Sometimes it's obvious and you can see it, but otherwise it's also possible that the gut can be a wreck without any overt signs, right? Which is why sometimes testing and getting some data about what's going on can be quite helpful. Absolutely,
Jason Klop 7:11
yeah, and I would say that most kids have obvious GI issues, but there are some. And you know, it's hard to know, like, is it just a matter of time before it presents in GI issues. But oftentimes, just from what I've seen and having looked at hundreds of these different tests for kids with autism, oftentimes the story's already there, right? Like the combination of their medical history and how they came into this world combined with, if you do testing, you'll start to understand, oh, wow, there's, like, a lot more going on, but it's just not reached a point potentially, where it's severe enough, or some triggers haven't happened that would cause it to result in Express symptoms. But, you know, it was very, you know, I'd like to say roughly five to 10 kids, after speaking with hundreds, probably over 1000s of families had no early use of antibiotics. So early use of antibiotics is so common for different reasons. And you know, this is not to say antibiotics don't have a place. They absolutely do and can be life saving, but antibiotics are so disruptive to the microbiome, especially in those early years of development, and so when an antibiotic comes into play, you really change the development of the microbiome. And the development of the brain, particularly is tied to the development of the gut microbiome. And so a delayed development of our gut microbiome will lead to a delay of the neurological tissues and the pruning and wiring of how things happen in the brain. And so development is a very broad thing that happens globally, and it's all timed. And then that's partly why manipulating and improving the gut microbiome early on has a better chance at leading to some of these neurological changes and benefits that would, you know, improve behaviors and learning and speech, and the list goes on, sure,
Len Arcuri 9:03
yeah, no, I'm listening to what you're saying, and my mind constantly goes to root cause, root cause, root cause. And I feel like if parents get more information and have a better sense of what's going on with their child, and reveal those root causes to focus on, so much becomes possible. So when I think about the gut generally, and again, I've been at this, you know, for almost 20 years, you know, just kind of being focused on this topic. It used to be that if the gut was an issue, right, it was, it was leaky gut, or it was gut dysbiosis or or maybe it was some kind of pathogens, bad bacteria, whatever the case may be. And so those are all I know still at play. And those are all still real conditions. But I think the concept of depletion, of there just not being what needs to be there in a healthy microbiome, I do think that's kind of new correct. And so can you talk a little bit more from a. Root Cause perspective? Yes, there's many. But what have you found to be new and interesting and and very potentially game changing in terms of how, what root cause that you're focusing on?
Jason Klop 10:13
Yeah, I mean, I think all of those things are essentially linked to the gut microbiome, right? Like, just take leaky gut as an example. That is essentially because you don't have the right types of bacteria and other things within the gut that can reduce the inflammation that's then damaging the gut microbiome. And so the challenges, and we'll go back to the antibiotics, or just being born via C section, if you don't have the right microbes there and or you've had the microbes, but they've been displaced or totally eliminated with antibiotics, there's essentially no way to bring those back. So if a patient, or in this case, a child, is totally missing certain strains of bacteria, let's just say, Bifidobacterium or lactobacillus, using a synthetic source, it's just not going to come back. You could take those, and I've seen this a time and time again. So does the research validate this, but you could take the probiotics all day, and once you stop them, and you wait a little while and retest, they're not going to be present there again. And so even, you know, a lot of kids have oxalate issues as an example, and there are some antibiotics that are more severe when it comes to degrading the bacteria that break down oxalates. Like oxalobacter is one of them. And so if that's completely missing, now the child starts having problems in breaking down oxalates. And so now they'll start to see, you know, pain with urination, or, you know, list goes on that happens as a secondary effect to that. And so the only way then to rebuild those missing or imbalanced microbes is in that context, in the more severe case, to totally replace with a transplant, this fecal microbiota transplant from a healthy screen donor into the recipient. Now it can graft stay there, and you're supporting that. Then further with the healthy, broad diet, and the list goes on.
Len Arcuri 12:04
Okay, now that that makes it super clear. So to bottom line it a little bit in some cases, adults, children, whatever the case may be, especially given the history, the antibiotics, the C section, whatever the health, whatever else might be, of clay, trying to improve what's there may be futile, or may just take an incredibly long amount of time, and that certain, at a certain point, it might be you just need to rebuild which is where, which is where FMT comes in. Yes.
Jason Klop 12:36
And I think there's, you know, an important like thing to be aware of for the audience, as well as just that, we're often focused, especially from a testing standpoint, on, like, oh, what's bad? And like, in the red, yellow, greens of a test report and and I think we spend a lot more time trying to go after the bad guys and say, Well, if we can just get rid of X or Y bug, we're going to start to see a benefit. But the reality is, is those bugs are there because there's nothing else to displace them. Candida is another example, right? Like a fungal overgrowth that can lead to a whole bunch of symptoms as well, whether it's like laughing, giddy, drunk type of behavior, you can take herbal antifungals, pharmaceutical prescription antifungals until the cows come home. I mean, you can do that all the time, and some kids rely on that continuously, and if they get off of it, we're going to see huge behaviors. Now the only way to permanently fix that problem is not by just killing and I think that's the the re thinking or reimagining of how we approach the microbiome is not to kill our way to health, but it's try to rebuild our way from the ground up so that this intelligent system can moderate itself. I mean, it's designed when there's the right inputs to moderate, to prevent overgrowth of, you know, bad bacteria, of fungal overgrowths and all of these things. But if there's nothing there, it would be like tilling a garden, getting it ready to plant seeds, but then never planting seeds. What's going to happen? Weeds are going to come in. And those are not a bad thing, actually. That's a you know, you're actually preserving the health of the soil. Because if you just had a bare, open field, but never planted anything, the wind and the rain is just going to wash away all the topsoil and the nutrients and everything else. So in some case, we're actually preserving what little is left of the microbiome by having fungus and other potentially bad or overgrown bacterias, but they only you know. It's a competition. It's like a forest, right? When you have a healthy forest, it controls itself. It doesn't require you to keep going in and, like cutting trees out. No, it requires you to just let the forest do what the forest does, and that's the microbiome. And by doing a transplant, you're essentially like cleaning the field, putting in new and the full spectrum, not just a very defined by one or two different bacterias, the full spectrum, which would include healthy funguses, viruses, parasites like this. It's a wild environment there, but definitely excluding for anything but. Potentially pathogenic that could come through a transplant if you didn't do this in a very controlled manner.
Len Arcuri 15:06
Yeah. So, Jason, yeah, it would be nice if it was as easy as, okay, here's the bad thing to go after. Let's kill that, and everything's going to be great. But obviously, as you alluded to, it's more complex than that, and it's definitely more complex than that. And I think the idea of adding good bacteria, right, which is why everyone went crazy with probiotics, right? Probiotics may be helpful in certain instances, but generally speaking, just adding billions of a few strains of good bacteria may seem well intentioned, but that actually could wind up creating even more of a of an imbalance within the gut, right? So that's why it's not as simple just popping some pills.
Jason Klop 15:45
Yeah, and I think it's important to understand, like, although there can be benefits from probiotics, so I'm not discouraging people from using them. It's just generally that they have a transient benefit, like, you get some benefit while doing them, while they're moving through the system, but they don't create a permanent engraftment. So the big distinction is, probiotics don't engraft they don't stay there. They don't become a permanent member of this microbiome, whereas with an FMT, because you're giving a full microbiome, and it's not a synthetic version, and it's natural to the body and the habitat of the gut. It can stay there, and it can stay there permanently, assuming that you continue to support it and avoid antibiotics and all of the things that we know would otherwise damage the gut got
Len Arcuri 16:32
it. Could you go a little bit deeper on the concept of engraftment? Because if you're thinking about the gut, and you're thinking about introducing things to improve what's happening there. It's a term that I know I wasn't familiar with until recently. So can you just go a little bit deeper on what that term means?
Jason Klop 16:49
Yeah, essentially, the idea around engraftment is, is that, unlike a probiotic that goes through and has a transient benefit but never takes up residence, engraftment essentially means that it goes through, finds a micro environment that's habitable for it takes root, grows, stays there, and continues to be there for months, years, decades in time beyond that period. And so just imagine, like post an FMT treatment A month later, for example, you could retest and what might have been missing on a pre on a test that you did pre treatment should still be there for as a follow up. Now, if you did it during a probiotic protocol or during an FMT protocol, it wouldn't truly represent what was engrafted and staying there, right, because it would just be catching what's in the stool sample or whatever you were using to test to begin with. And so that's really the distinction. You have to wait some time until treatments been completed, and then compare a pre and a post to see what's actually taken up residence, what's still there and having a benefit. And on the point of engraftment, there's things that you can do to support engraftment and make sure that it actually it has an environment to stay in. And so one of the parts of the FMT treatment approach is pre treatment, so it's actually clearing up and getting rid of a lot of overgrown, potentially pathogenic bacteria fungi, just to make sure there's an actual environment there, so that new microbes coming in have a place to take up residence. So again, you know the garden analogy, like you'd want to get rid of the weeds beforehand, then do the FMT. And this might be, you know, sound like a little bit of a wait a minute. I thought we weren't killing things before, and generally, No, there's not a ton of benefit to that. But in the context of FMT, you do want to try to clean things up as much as possible, then go into the FMT so that there's actually a place for them to engraft and there's not too much of an uphill struggle to fight for territory, so to speak. And so that's the general concept around engraftment. And then bacteria like they have their life, right? And so they need to be fed, and that's a big part of what you would do during the treatment and following the treatment to make sure they stay there just like a plant, you need to give it water, or you need to be fertilizing. So you need to be giving these bacteria food, essentially fibers across a diverse spectrum, to ensure that all of these new bugs continue to grow and thrive. If you stayed on a very restrictive diet, you're not going to get the full benefit of the transplant, because a lot of those microbes will slowly die off because they don't have a fuel source. They have no food, and that's the purpose of the bacteria is to digest fiber, but if they have nothing to eat and digest and break down and utilize throughout the body. They'll just eventually go away, and you may still be stuck with some microbes that will you know that you'll be getting from other sources of the diet, but that's the big goal. Is to expand the diet, get more fiber support, more of these microbes to stay and pause. Positively impact the microbiome.
Len Arcuri 20:01
Yeah, Jason, I think parents were listening. The everyone, including myself here, was always looking for that, that, you know, silver bullet, the magic pill, something that's going to just kind of be introduced and kind of solve everything. And I really thought that was the case with that FMT when I first heard about it. But what you're indicating is that, yeah, this is a piece, and all those other things still do matter. You know, diversity, in terms of the food, playing defense against toxins, all that stuff does still matter. But that if you prepare and get the gut ready for something like this, then you really stack the deck for success.
Jason Klop 20:38
Yeah, completely. And I appreciate you mentioning that like it can appear like a silver bullet in some cases where it's such an obvious player in the child's current ailments, digestive issues, neurological, etc, but it's works best as part of a, you know, broad, integrative, functional approach to health and healing like this is, without a doubt, the ground layer, foundation of our health and well being. However, we need to continue to support that, and we need to eliminate things that we know both damage the gut microbiome and the body in general, right? Like you wouldn't want to keep ingesting toxins or living in a moldy home, or all of these other things that we know are not beneficial to health and healing. So it is a part of a global plan and approach. But it's not a be all, end all, and I don't think anything exists out there that is but it for the right case, it can absolutely set a very strong foundation by which other therapies that a child previously didn't respond to or didn't appear to work can now begin to work. And just a quick anecdote in the context of cancer oncology, fmts being used in that field to help those patients who have a drug they're not responding to, especially the Amino biologic. So the patient is not responding to a drug that they should for their their cancer, they do FMT and they change their microbiome, they now begin responding to that drug. So it's a very interesting parallel where sometimes a parent will have tried a treatment that has worked for a lot of other kids, just using stem cells as an example, but then they try it, and nothing changes or improves. And so by improving the gut microbiome, you may improve the efficacy and outcomes of other therapies and treatments.
Len Arcuri 22:34
Great. Yeah, that makes sense. The questions that are popping into my mind now are in terms of, like, how does this play out? Like, if somebody wanted to go down this road, can you talk a little bit about how it works, what the steps, generally are involved, and particularly, I know I had in my head, again, on an early understanding of this, that if you were going to, let's say, look at this as an option for your Child, that you might look to have a transplant from somebody in the family, like that, it might be useful to have somebody in the family. And then I've heard arguments that say maybe that's not what you want. So can we talk a little bit about donors, how important that is, what you look for, and just what the overall process looks like?
Jason Klop 23:17
Sure, yeah. And I'm totally in agreement that the donors and screening is just a critical piece to ensure both safety and efficacy. So as a company, novel biome, we're licensed by Health Canada, which means we have what's called a drug Establishment License. It's GMP drug level manufacturing standards that comply with Canada, the FDA standards and other jurisdictions that we sell products into, and so that's an important distinction. You want to make sure that you're excluding anything that could be pathogenic, infectious cause traits to go from a donor to a patient. And so our donor screening program is very rigid. Less than 1% of people that apply actually make it into the program. It includes their full medical history, their immediate family medical history, to remove any diseases that could be contributing to a weakened microbiome, say, for example, a sibling that had autism, that would exclude an otherwise healthy person who's applying to be a donor to even enter our program, and the list goes on and on, but we're looking at, are they breastfed, vaginally born, their history of antibiotic use? We're looking at their vaccine history. We're looking at, are they physically fit and active? What is their diet like we do? Blood, urine, stool screening. That's a very exhaustive panel, and that's repeated every 90 days. And so there's just a lot that goes into both the screening and acceptance of a donor, and then as much or more into the actual manufacturing of the product. So being in a GMP environment, everything is controlled. There's no cross contamination. Everything is tested from an environmental. Standpoint, there's finished product testing, there's documentation, there's shelf life stability studies. I mean, this is a very robust process to ensure, again, the increased likelihood of efficacy and minimizing to as close to zero as possible, any likelihood for risk. And with my years of being in the space, I'm very glad to report that the safety profile is really phenomenal. Now, to your point on donors, I've heard the similar arguments around age matching or gender matching, or even using a family member. What I've found a from a practicality standpoint, we can't have and properly screen donors that are from around the world. But more than that, what we what we see, and what I seen, especially when I was still treating kids with autism, is that many, in many cases, and this isn't just an autism, this is broadly, in many cases. There isn't an ideal sibling or parent as a donor, like in our case, for example, we don't accept donors over 30 years old, so that would exclude, in most cases, most parents, and then as far as a sibling goes, like we would never even accept a donor who has a sibling with autism, because we know that potentially, their microbiome being inherited could also not be an ideal microbiome. And so, you know, in the rough DIY world, you could, in theory, do something like that, but we don't advocate for that, because by to do all the appropriate screening and to do the manufacturing in the safest, you know, cleanest way that's hard to do in your, you know, your bathroom or something. So I understand why people resort to that, but I just don't think it's it's generally accessible, and based on everything we're seeing in the research, that's not using a family member or an age matched or gender matched donor, it appears to have no obvious outcome on the impact of the treatment as it stands. So I don't see any reason to further complicate it
Len Arcuri 27:08
in this space, it'd be easy to look around and it makes sense within the family. Doesn't make sense if there's our conditions that are creating the microbiome issues in the child, that it very well could be in the siblings as well. But I think that screening piece that you mentioned is important, because knowing who would be a healthy donor is a is a very useful question. And it might be easy to say, Okay, well, I have a donor, somebody who, you know, lives a clean, you know has lives very cleanly, doesn't eat processed food lives in a non toxic environment. That must be, you know, that might be a good donor, and that may seem reasonable, but otherwise, again, in terms of all the things to look for, that's where your process is extremely thorough to make sure what's being introduced is, you know, not, in some ways, making things worse, right? Depending on what might be contained in that sample?
Jason Klop 28:02
Correct? Yes, all right. Well, that helps the pro me understand in terms of the process and how the donor is really, really important in terms of the process, like, is it for somebody who's doing this implantation and you're wanting to have engraftment? How long does it take? Is it does it take repeated efforts, or is it a one and done? Can you just talk a little bit about what that process looks like? Yeah, great question, and that really does vary on the disease. I mean, I know we spend a lot of time today talking about autism, so especially in the context of autism, what we've seen, both in the data and just empirically through experience, is that shorter protocols don't appear to have a more permanent result in autism. Now, in the context of C diff, which is a pretty serious gi infection, a single treatment can totally reverse that disease, but that's a very acute illness that can require a short course of treatment in autism. You know, looking at Dr Adams studies, they did an eight week protocol, I think later they shifted to a 12 week protocol, when I was still practicing and seeing patients, we were doing like approximately a four month treatment protocol. So somewhere in that range, you know, treating definitely longer than a few days, but into the several months, potentially there's no harm in treating too long or giving too much. And so there's really no downside outside of you know, the longer you treat, potentially the more expensive the overall therapy and treatment is going to be. But generally speaking, the more chronic, the more severe, the longer one may need to treat. We don't have, like really long term data in general on should this need to be repeated. We do know that as you age, you know the health of your microbiome just does naturally decline. And so this is also being studied and used in longevity and performance and all of those areas. So. But assuming a healthy diet and lifestyle and avoiding things that would damage the gut microbiome, this is generally not something you continue to repeat. There may be use cases where you could just an example of an adult patient that comes to mind, you know, the mom and dad shared the child in 5050, custody, and when the child was the dad horrible diet, you know, didn't follow any supplementation, didn't do any of the stuff that mom was doing. And so what she found was just treating him once a week, giving him one pill once a week after the initial protocol was enough to keep his bowels consistent, having regular bowel movements and overall improvements in some of his anxiety and other challenges that he had. So, you know, there's always these unique situations, and there's really no harm in repeating it again a year later or two years later, just depending on what other therapies and treatments may have been trialed during that period. But, yeah, generally speaking, as a concept, this isn't something we keep repeating. Got
Len Arcuri 31:01
it and but the form is, there's an initial process, and then for however long you continue, it's mainly pill form, correct?
Jason Klop 31:09
Yeah, there's a few different treatment options as far as how to proceed. If it's an it's a patient that can swallow capsules, essentially the whole treatment could be completed with capsules. In the case where it's a younger child or a child who can't swallow capsules, we also have an oral powder, and that could be the treatment could be done completely with an oral powder that's substantially colorless, odorless and tasteless. We do also have like a rectal enema version or colonoscopy version, and some clinics and doctors have a preference to use those as a starting point to sort of as a loading dose. But it really varies on the clinic or practice. I'm a huge fan of just treating orally. I mean, it's easy. It's very like from a compliance standpoint, it's easy and straightforward. So generally, that's what we're suggesting. But there are some individual use cases where it could be beneficial to do a rectal delivery.
Len Arcuri 32:04
Great. Now that clarifies things for me, for sure. And I know you mentioned about in terms of conditions and what if it's acute, it might be quick. If it's something like on the autism spectrum, it might be somewhat more lengthy. What about pans and pandas only because that is seemingly exploding in terms of the number of kids who are experiencing, experiencing that is that, would you say that's similar to being on the autism spectrum, where that might be a more lengthy process,
Jason Klop 32:34
I would say it would be similar. I mean, from my experience, it's very common that the pans pandas is happening in kids with autism. I know there are cases where they don't have autism. From my perspective, it was always really hard to tell, like, where did autism Start and End? Understanding, that's a spectrum, and where did pan's panda start and end? You know, there's just so much overlap with that. Said, Generally, we would put those kids that fit in the autism pans panda category onto a similar protocol and seeing sort of similar outcomes. So what we saw is definitely a reduction in the severity of the flare, a reduction in the frequency of the flares. And in some cases, kids just wouldn't go into flares over the, you know, months and years that I was engaging with these parents. So it's hard to say, like, was it completely cured? I mean, who knows, but I think there's an absolute possibility where by appropriately reseeding the gut microbiome and retraining their immune system, that they shouldn't have this auto immune type reaction. So I think it's totally feasible that by realigning the microbiome with the immune system, this shouldn't continue to happen.
Len Arcuri 33:49
I know we talked about a silver bullet in your magic pill and all that. Now I'm going to ask you for a crystal ball, like, if you just think about where, where this has been and where, where it is now, like if you think 10 years from now, what is it like? What do you think mainstream medicine will understand that it's missing today with respect to the microbiome?
Jason Klop 34:09
Ah, great question. I think we'll understand more across conditions broadly the real impact and importance of the microbiome. So I think that'll be happening for sure in the context of FMT, I think we'll be much more precise about understanding how to be matching a donor to a patient, and ideally identifying who would be a responder to FMT and who wouldn't be and so that we can get more sort of precise about deciding who should or shouldn't go through treatment by appropriate screening of that patient. So right now, you know, we don't really know. We just have a sense like, okay, their microbiome is impacted. They're having, in many cases, digestive issues. We think this could really work well for them, and the percentage of people that are responding May. Said, a very sound argument, but I think we'll get a much better sense as time progresses as to who is or isn't. And you know, there'd be an ideal world where we didn't need to do FMT, where we could manipulate the microbiome without having to use a donor as the source material, again and again and again. So that is a possibility in 10 years, but, you know, we've tried that with probiotics, and it hasn't worked. And so I think it's unlikely, but that would be a great alternative where people could get access to something that was, you know, not as intense and invasive and expensive as having to go the route of fmt. And then I think, and I hope, we could become much more proactive about the way that we address early signs of microbiome disruption. And so just quickly, there was a study in I think it was Sweden or Finland, one of the Scandinavian countries, where they actually gave C section born infants as a part of their first feeding a transplant from the mother. And at six months, their microbiome was indistinguishable from a C section delivered child. And so just imagine the lifetimes of chronic disease that we could potentially prevent simply by addressing the microbiome early. Another case point is Parkinson's. Like we know essentially, about 20 years before the progression and development of Parkinson's, we're seeing changes in the microbiome. We're seeing digestive issues, or IBS, and so if we could understand in hindsight now, saying, okay, look, there's a clear tie here, what can we do early to assess who is at greater risk and what we can do to prevent them going down that pathway in the next 510, 1520, years. So I think we'll become much more proactive, or at least I hope we will.
Len Arcuri 36:55
Well, that sounds extremely exciting and hopeful, and especially you mentioned about C sections, which is very relevant for my son, and I think, kind of a root of a lot of the challenges he had and continues to have, so, so exciting that if that's something that's in a history, that there might be something to be able to do about that if, if, because in many cases, the C sections aren't optional, people sign, or some people opt for them. In my wife's case, you know, it wasn't optional, and it'd be very exciting if you could do something soon afterwards to to get those protective benefits of a natural delivery. So that's that sounds very, very exciting and hopeful, but I guess Jason, if I'd ask you just the bottom line. You know, if you really wanted the listeners to take one thing away from this conversation regarding the microbiome, what would it be?
Jason Klop 37:48
I would say, feed it. It's like a organism that we just take for granted as something that's just in our body, but it's, it's it could. It comes from nature, it comes from Earth. And so we almost have to think about it as another life living inside of us. And the only way to sustain life is give it the inputs that it needs. And so I would say, just really respect the importance of it and and appreciate the role that it can play when you put an emphasis on supporting it, and you don't need to jump straight to FMT to do this, right? It's a big part of it is avoiding the things that we know damage the gut microbiome, and then supporting it with the diet and being in nature. And I always joke hug a tree and I'll go swimming in a lake like the Earth is the original microbiome. And so if we can interact with the Earth, we're going to support our microbiome. And a huge, you know, belief that I have, and I think it's so important, is like we sustain the Earth's microbiome, because without the health of the earth microbiome, which we're damaging through how we're treating crops and everything else, it will, in time, have an effect on our microbiome. And I think we're seeing today what happened years ago, right? We've inherited our microbiomes through the matriarch right? And so mom, grandma, great grandma. So we're seeing today what we've done generations ago. And so I think to change course that we really need to think about, how do we support ours and our kids microbiome so that the next generation can be in a better place, and a big part of that goes to protecting the Earth's microbiome. And so interact with nature, eat the foods that are out there that are meant to support the microbiome, try to, as a minimum, expand the types of foods that you're eating, even if it's just a small percentage. That small percentage can result in change within 24 to 48 hours, like change happens fast in the microbiome, depending on the inputs that you're giving it.
Len Arcuri 39:49
Yeah, that's powerful, and I appreciate your perspective. And yeah, I think my takeaway from what you're saying is that a microbiome is incredibly important, and over time, it's only going to be more important. Important, given the science, given the research and the studies that are being done, and the title of this episode, that the microbiome can be rebuilt, is super exciting. And again, for parents listening, where might this fit in? This was all about just better informing you of this opportunity, of the importance of the microbiome. And Jason, I really appreciate you taking the time today.
Jason Klop 40:21
Awesome. Nice hanging with you, Len
Len Arcuri 40:23
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