Fecal microbiota transplantation alleviates mild‐moderate COVID‐19 associated diarrhoea and depression symptoms: A prospective study of a randomized, double‐blind clinical trial

Abstract Currently, the emergence of the endemic Coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) situation still poses a serious threat to public health. However, it remains elusive about the role of fecal microbiota transplantation in treating COVID‐19. We performed a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled clinical trial enrolling a cohort of 40 COVID‐19 patients with mild‐moderate symptoms. Our results showed that fecal microbiota transplantation provided an amelioration in diarrhoea ( p = 0.026) of digestive system and depression ( p = 0.006) of neuropsychiatric‐related symptom in COVID‐19 patients, respectively. Meanwhile, we found that the number of patients with diarrhoea decreased from 19 to 0 on day 7 after fecal microbiota transplantation treatment, and it was statistically changed compared to the placebo group ( p = 0.047). Of note, the serum concentration of aspartate aminotransferase‐to‐alanine aminotransferase ratio (AST/ALT, fecal microbiota transplantation, pre vs. post: 0.966 vs. 0.817), a biomarker for predicting long COVID‐19, was significantly reduced by fecal microbiota transplantation. In all, our study supports that fecal microbiota transplantation could be a novel therapeutic strategy for COVID‐19 patients with diarrhoea and depressive symptoms, which is potentially valuable in ameliorating long COVID‐19 symptoms.