The effect of fecal microbiota transplantation on psychiatric symptoms among patients with inflammatory bowel disease: an experimental study.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past decade, evidence that supports the relationship between intestinal microbiota and the brain has been obtained. Ageing, stress, nutrition and medicines can alter the composition of bacteria in the intestinal microbiota. This condition, called dysbiosis, can be repaired through prebiotics, probiotics or fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). FMT is effective in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Information on FMT's use with psychiatric disorders is limited. This study aims to investigate changes in the severity of depression, anxiety and obsession of patients who received FMT for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.

METHODS

This study was conducted with 10 patients with IBD who underwent FMT between March and September 2017. FMT was performed by an experienced gastroenterologist. The patients completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) before FMT and again at 1 month after FMT.

RESULTS

Significant decreases were found in BDI (Z=2.49, p=0.013), SCL-90-R (Z=-2.09, p=0.037) and MOCI (Z=2.08, p=0.037) scores after 1 month of FMT. Although the SCL-90-R anxiety subscale scores decreased, this decrease was not statistically significant (Z=-1.55, p=0.121).

CONCLUSIONS

The severity of anxiety, depression and obsession in IBD patients decreased after FMT. The decrease in psychiatric symptoms may result from the direct neuropsychiatric effect of FMT (primary effect), but also the improvement of gastrointestinal symptoms (secondary effect). Another possibility is that this result is independent of these two conditions. Therefore, the results of our study are not sufficient to establish a cause-effect relationship. More randomised controlled trials with larger samples from patients with anxiety or depression but without comorbid physical illnesses are needed to generalise these results.