Overview
- In stool assays, samples from patients during flares produced significantly more ethanol than those from household partners and healthy controls, supporting the feasibility of a stool‑based diagnostic.
- The observational cohort compared 22 ABS patients with 21 household partners and 22 healthy controls, representing the largest systematic study of the condition to date.
- Researchers linked ABS flares to elevated activity of fermentation enzymes and genes, pointing to therapies that target microbial metabolic functions rather than single species.
- One patient achieved prolonged remission after fecal microbiota transplantation, and a phase 1 trial is now enrolling eight ABS patients to evaluate this approach.
- The study implicates bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae as ethanol producers in some patients, while noting that identifying causative microbes can vary case by case.