poop and percent weight of e. coli

A friend and I somehow started debating what percent of poop is actually e. coli. After debating and then googling, I found:

To understand the E. coli bacterium is to know that it is basically unavoidable – at least, in its benign form. Typically found in the intestines of all animals, including humans, E. coli has hundreds of strains, most of them beneficial. The bacterium helps produce essential K and B-complex vitamins and suppresses the growth of more harmful bacteria. <b>It also composes a large part of stool weight</b>. And from the time of its discovery in 1885, no one believed the bacterium did much else.
(from www.islandscene.com/health/2000/001011/ecoli/page2.asp)

Does anyone have any hard numbers to back this up? While googling for an hour searching with keywords like “fecal floura profile” is quite amuzing in a childish way, I had to give up.

I have a degree in microbiology, and in one of my classes, I was told dead bacteria - mostly E. coli - make up roughly one third of fecal dry weight. I don’t have a cite for you, though.

I have a degree in microbiology too, and was taught 1/3rd as well. I think most of the rest is dead red blood cells?

There are no dead red blood cells in faeces unless you are suffering form internal bleeding or other nasty conditions. A tiny portion is composed of the breakdown products of of haemoglobin, and this is what gives faces its colour.

Depending on your diet bacterial mass is between 20 and 50% of dry weight. I’m not sure what percentage of that would be E. coli. WAG would be 50%. In general people in western societies have higher bacterial percentages, closer to the 50% range. Why? Because most of the rest of the faeces is fibre. Most westerners have fairly low fibre diets.

So what would happen if for some reason a human being was completely…

de-flora’ed?

de-florigated?

de-flowered?

wiped clean of all bacteria and other microorganisms, beneficial and non?

Would we still be able to digest our food? How would it cause us problems?

I also question how much of the bacterial mass is E. coli. There are dozens or hundreds of possible bacterial species that live in the colon. The percentage of these will vary greatly over time and with diet.

One reason we know this is that the bacteria are divided into those that ferment lactose and those that digest lactose, and the varying proportions of each will either cause or not cause gas in people who are lactose intolerance and eat dairy products. The Lactobacillus bacteria that are found in yogurt are known to colonize in the colon and digest lactose. For this reason yogurt is recommended to people with LI and specialty acidophilus pills are also marketed for the same purpose.

People get fe-flora’ed regularly, whenever they take a course of antibiotics. It’s not a big deal because a new colony will start forming as soon as you eat something. What that new colony consists of, bacterially, depends greatly on just exactly what you eat afterward.

So given the double uncertainly provided by the varying amounts of fiber in the diet, I don’t think there can be a single answer for what the bacterial composition is or what percent of the mass it is at any given time.

After writing “fe-flora’ed” I’m in no position to talk, but polymur probably would have gotten much better Google results on “flora” rather than “floura”.

Here’s one analysis:
Appl. Environ. Microbiol., Sep 1995, 3202-3207, Vol 61, No. 9
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology

Intestinal floras of populations that have a high risk of colon cancer, WE Moore and LH Moore

They found 371 taxa of bacteria in 88 fecal specimens. Most were seen only once. There are several tables about frequencies for the rest.