Would You Take a Poop-Based Supplement to Enhance Athletic Performance?

These scientists are betting on it

Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash

Leighton Woodhouse has run 11 half-marathons, five full marathons, and four shorter races since 2007. When he first began running, all he knew about training was that he needed to run a little bit further than the last time. But over the years, the 44-year-old’s race preparation has become more sophisticated, and now includes interval running, hill running, tempo running, and weightlifting.

Woodhouse, a documentary filmmaker in Oakland, California, has improved so much that he now has his sights set on the Boston Marathon.

“The 3:23 time I made was just three minutes short of qualifying for Boston in my age group,” says Woodhouse about his last marathon. “So now I’m focused on taking those three minutes off and registering for Boston in 2020.”

To reach his goals, Woodhouse sleeps longer, eats a healthy diet, and tracks his VO2 max (a measure of how much oxygen his body takes in during his most strenuous runs). He’s also invested in gadgets and special running shoes — training strategies similar to those of elite Boston marathoners.

But a group of microbiome scientists believe that someday soon, Woodhouse will have another way to push himself closer to those elite runners: By literally changing the gut bacteria inside his body to match theirs.

A new study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine suggests these scientists are a little bit closer to that goal. The research, conducted by researchers at Harvard, pinpoints a genus of bacteria called Veillonella that thrives in the bowels of elite Boston Marathon runners, especially after a big race.

After scientists extracted this bacteria and administered it to mice, the mice ran 13% longer than mice who were given a different kind of bacteria.

If human trials are similarly successful, this research could pave the way for an array of drinks, supplements, yogurts, and kombuchas for runners who want to do everything they possibly can to enhance their performance, says Jonathan Scheiman, a co-author on the paper and the co-founder of FitBiomics, a microbiome biotech company. Enhanced running ability is just one of many…