Who would have thought that “donating feces” could actually make money! ?

Editor: He Jian

“Donating feces” can make money

It sounds incredible.

Some netizens said:

If it's true, I can donate until he goes bankrupt!

To be honest, this story sounds a bit fake, but it is true. In 2023, a hospital in Xi'an invited local college students to come to the hospital for "paid shit". If the feces meet the requirements, they will get 300 yuan for each donation, and can donate up to 5 times a week. If calculated based on full attendance, it would be 6,000 yuan a month.

A company in the United States has also been looking for "super poop" producers on the Internet. The company said: If you are young, athletic, and physically and mentally healthy, you can apply on the website to donate feces. As long as you meet the requirements, you can get up to $500 for each donation. If you can donate once a day, you can get a subsidy of up to $180,000 a year.

In the past, the most common thing we heard about was donating blood, sperm, and eggs. Now, even feces are missing? What do they want to do? It's just a pile of excrement. The amount flushed down the toilet every day is not too much. Why would anyone collect this? To farm? If not, what else can they use it for? In fact, these donated feces are not used for farming, but for treating diseases and even saving lives.

Feces are waste excreted by the human body, containing 60% to 70% water, as well as protein, inorganic matter, fat, undigested dietary fiber, cells shed from the intestines, vitamin K, vitamin B, and intestinal flora of "different components". The intestinal flora is regarded by the medical community as a "hidden organ" that carries the "second gene" of human health. It is a general term for the microbial community that lives in the human intestine all year round. There are more than 1,000 rich "species" with a total of about 100 trillion, which is more than the total number of cells in the human body. The weight accounts for 1% to 3% of the human body weight (1.5 to 2.5 kg), and it has the function of regulating human health.

Basic research has found that intestinal flora imbalance can cause a variety of diseases. In order to treat these diseases, a microbiota transplantation technology, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), came into being. This technology refers to the introduction of microbiota from the feces of healthy donors into the gastrointestinal tract of patients to treat diseases related to flora imbalance. FMT has been used to treat human diseases for at least a thousand years.

At present, our understanding of intestinal flora is very limited. Since the number and type of intestinal flora in each person are different, we may know less than we think. At present, a large number of studies at home and abroad have shown that maintaining the diversity of intestinal flora is more conducive to health , and factors such as age, race, dietary structure, drug treatment, and lifestyle habits have a direct impact on the intestinal microecological system and flora structure.

Professor Zhang Faming from the Enteric Disease Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University invented the world's first intelligent fecal bacteria separation system and a new full colon implant that allows for non-invasive repeated transplants. He proposed the theory of washed flora transplantation and proved its ability to improve safety.

He said that the source of fecal bacteria is similar to donating blood and selecting bone marrow . Since 2015, we have established a bacterial bank as a core project of the National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases led by Academician Fan Daiming and promoted it nationwide. Now fecal bacteria have shown the same role as blood banks, playing the role of a central bank for the whole country. This is the inevitable direction of development. From 2015 to now, we have achieved unexpected results in the treatment of epilepsy. The patient with the longest time has not had symptoms recurred for 8 years.

Zhang Faming even used fecal microbiota transplantation for leukemia patients, hoping that the microbiota could regulate the patient's immune status, thereby achieving "reducing toxicity and enhancing efficacy" of chemotherapy, and treating immune rejection and intestinal infection after bone marrow transplantation. At present, the team has treated more than 100 leukemia patients. This is also the case for kidney and liver transplant patients.

According to Yang Weihua, deputy director of the Intestinal Flora Diagnosis and Treatment Center of Jinan Central Hospital, Jinan Central Hospital launched this treatment in Shandong Province in 2017 and has treated thousands of people, covering more than 20 diseases, including ulcerative colitis, functional bowel disease, pseudomembranous enterocolitis, chronic gastritis, colon polyps, unexplained abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating, constipation, diabetes, cirrhosis, autoimmune liver disease, allergic asthma, psoriasis, uremia with constipation, autism and other intestinal and extraintestinal diseases.

Pseudomembranous colitis, ulcerative colitis, unexplained abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating, allergic asthma, autism, diabetes, cirrhosis, and many skin diseases are also related to intestinal bacteria. Currently, more than 80 diseases are found to be suitable for intestinal bacteria transplantation . Patients can judge whether they are suitable for intestinal bacteria transplantation based on symptoms and disease types. For example, most intestinal symptoms are suitable, and most diseases accompanied by digestive tract symptoms such as diarrhea and constipation are also suitable. Diseases related to immunity, metabolism, and nutrition are also mostly suitable. Others can be left to the doctor to judge.

Not everyone can donate feces. It is not a question of whether you poop less and he poops more, but this kind of "poop" that can be used to save other people's lives and treat diseases has very strict access requirements.

Gao Ting, CMC (drug research and development) director of Shenzhen Weizhijun Biotechnology Co., Ltd., said that feces donation has certain requirements for the volunteers (also known as "donors") . First of all, the age must be between 18 and 40 years old, especially focusing on young people, because young people who have not yet entered society have fewer social activities and are healthier, so the qualification rate is higher.

In addition, the volunteer recruitment process is divided into several stages, including questionnaire survey, signing informed consent, on-site interview, complete questionnaire screening, blood test, stool examination, and becoming a qualified donor. Among them, potential donors who pass the initial online screening will make an appointment for an interview and sign an informed consent before the interview begins. After passing all the examinations, they can become qualified donors, and the company will conduct a comprehensive review of the donors every two months.

Why are the requirements for "health" so detailed? Gao Ting explained that because we use fecal samples as raw materials for our drugs, we must be responsible to the subjects, so we have very strict requirements on the source.

Some staff members said that it is often difficult to pass the screening if you have had a tattoo, pierced ears, or done medical beauty projects recently, have taken antibiotics, or even have a mental illness. Although there are many people who consult and sign up for fecal donation, the actual pass rate is only about 10%. In 2019, a Shenzhen company issued a recruitment notice and received tens of thousands of applications, but only 49 people passed the test and donated fecal samples. It can be seen that donating feces is not something you can do if you want to, and "paid shitting" also depends on your ability to make money.

It is reported that it is not uncommon for institutions in China to collect health samples from donated feces. There are more than a dozen "feces purchasing" institutions in China, distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and other places. The China Fecal Microbiome Bank is currently the largest microbiome transplantation platform in China.

Reference sources: Qilu Yidian, Hubei Daily, Yidu, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, National Business Daily, etc.