FMT Capsules Lift Sleep Efficiency to 93% in 80 Insomnia Patients

1 articles · Updated · Livescience.com · Aug 3

Sleep efficiency in 40 treated adults rose from 79% to 93% one month after fecal microbiota transplant, while the placebo group edged from 85% to 87% in the randomized trial.
60 capsules from healthy donors—after two days of antibiotics and followed by a 20-capsule booster—also cut wake time after sleep onset from 79 minutes to 17 minutes; placebo patients worsened from 37 to 42 minutes.
Three of 40 FMT recipients reported only mild side effects such as nausea or transient fever, and treated patients also reported better sleep on questionnaires for up to six months.
The study linked those gains to a more diverse gut microbiome after treatment, but experts said the 80-patient China-only trial was small, measured sleep objectively only once after treatment, and could not separate antibiotic effects from donor microbes.
Researchers and outside specialists said the findings support the gut-sleep connection, but FMT remains experimental for insomnia until larger studies confirm safety, mechanism and who is most likely to benefit.