Here is a study just got published recently (Midtvedt T, et al. Increase of faecal tryptic activity relates to changes in the intestinal microbiome: analysis of Crohn's disease with a multidisciplinary platform. PLoS One. 2013 Jun 20;8(6):e66074. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3688706/ ). It indeed measured butyric acid and other short chain fatty acids in the faeces of patients with Crohn’s disease and controls, but did not show significant difference (with butyric acid being actually higher in patients than controls: 28.4 and 18.2 mmol/kg, respectively). In contrast, it showed a significant increase of faecal tryptic activity that seems related to the decrease in Bacteroides, with more than 92% of the microbiota being virtually the same between the patients and controls. I am excited about this finding as it is in accordance with my hypothesis that the impaired inactivation of digestive proteases may be the primary cause of IBD, and it seems this problem might be corrected by inoculation just one species of bacteria, rather the random, poorly-defined faecal transplantation.
