Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have found that fecal microbiome transplantation, delivered orally through capsules sometimes referred to informally as "poop pills," increased peanut tolerance in some adults with severe peanut allergies, offering an early but notable signal for a potential new approach to treating one of the most dangerous common food allergies.

The research, published August 5 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, examined whether transplanting gut bacteria from healthy, non-allergic donors into people with peanut allergies could reduce the severity of their allergic response. The Phase 1 trial was led by Dr. Rima Rachid, director of the Food Allergy Program and the Allergen Immunotherapy Program at Boston Children's Hospital, alongside Dr. Talal Chatila, director of translational immunology at the hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Researchers enrolled 15 adults between the ages of 18 and 33, all with highly sensitive peanut allergies who reacted to 100 milligrams of peanut protein or less during an initial food challenge, an amount smaller than what is found in half of a typical peanut. Participants swallowed 36 frozen, odorless capsules containing carefully screened stool-derived microbes from healthy donors, consumed over the course of a few hours across one or two days.

The trial unfolded in two stages. In the first stage, 10 participants received the fecal transplant alone. Four months........

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