Fecal Transplants, Modern Medical Science At Work

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genlock
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Fecal Transplants, Modern Medical Science At Work

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By MARILYNN MARCHIONE

Hold your nose and don't spit out your coffee: Doctors have found a way to put healthy people's poop into pills that can cure serious gut infections — a less yucky way to do "fecal transplants." Canadian researchers tried this on 27 patients and cured them all after strong antibiotics failed to help.

It's a gross topic but a serious problem. Half a million Americans get Clostridium difficile, or C-diff, infections each year, and about 14,000 die. The germ causes nausea, cramping and diarrhea so bad it is often disabling. A very potent and pricey antibiotic can kill C-diff but also destroys good bacteria that live in the gut, leaving it more susceptible to future infections.

Recently, studies have shown that fecal transplants — giving infected people stool from a healthy donor — can restore that balance. But they're given through expensive, invasive procedures like colonoscopies or throat tubes. Doctors also have tried giving the stool through enemas but the treatment doesn't always take hold.

There even are YouTube videos on how to do a similar treatment at home via an enema. A study in a medical journal of a small number of these "do-it-yourself" cases suggests the approach is safe and effective.

Dr. Thomas Louie, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary, devised a better way — a one-time treatment custom-made for each patient.

Donor stool, usually from a relative, is processed in the lab to take out food and extract the bacteria and clean it. It is packed into triple-coated gel capsules so they won't dissolve until they reach the intestines.

Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/Story/23600644/p ... z2ghM2oIiA
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Re: Fecal Transplants, Modern Medical Science At Work

Post by genlock »

An automotive grease gun might work better than an enema device.
Just a thought.
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Re: Fecal Transplants, Modern Medical Science At Work

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The Freakonomics podcast did a rather tasteful (if you can call poop "tasteful") job of explaining this back in March 2011.

http://freakonomics.com/2011/03/04/frea ... r-of-poop/
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