Who gives a shit!...

[Little Star]

Maybe we all do.


When Pills Fail, This, er, Option Provides a Cure
NY Times
By Denise Grady
Published: January 16, 2013

The treatment may sound appalling, but it works.

Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure severe intestinal infections caused by a dangerous type of bacteria that antibiotics often cannot control.

A new study finds that such transplants cured 15 of 16 people who had recurring infections with Clostridium difficile bacteria, whereas antibiotics cured only 3 of 13 and 4 of 13 patients in two comparison groups. The treatment appears to work by restoring the gut’s normal balance of bacteria, which fight off C. difficile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto&pagewanted=all&_r=0

[peace13]

1. ouuuu....interesting but kind of creepy.

Put that on a donor card!

[Neoma]

2. Ew!

[Little Star]

4. Double Ew! But what ever it takes. C. diff is bad stuff. n/t

[libodem]

3. C-diff

Is creepy. You haven't smelled stinky poo, until you catch a whiff of diff. Not kidding.

[DreamGypsy]

5. Gee, it's not like something is transplanted inside the body...

... the 'material' is just going into the gastrointestinal tract - the tube that develops from the archenteron, the primitive gut formed during gastrulation.

I find it amusing and a bit ironic that during gastrulation the blastopore develops into the mouth in certain 'primitive' animals (protostomes - mouth first) and into the anus in the rest of us (deuterostomes - mouth second).

[htuttle]

6. Hmm... 'Feces Donor' is a career path that I hadn't previously considered.

[TxDemChem]

7. I actually studied this in college

Fecal implants were becoming the rage about 7 years ago. More mainstream now. It is a pretty gross thought though.

[Warpy]

8. This has actually been out and discussed for a couple of years

Most hospital acquired C-diff is in patients who have had long courses of antibiotics for various problems and have completely upset the balance of gut bacteria by killing off the bugs that usually keep C-diff in check.

Shit transfusions make a huge amount of sense, even though they're often very distressful to the poor patient. They have to call it probiotics and hide the bag from the patient. Still, it tends to work better than more antibiotics will.

What they really need to do is refine out the friendly bacteria and put them into capsules to be taken by anyone on long term, high dose antibiotics.

The best treatment for c-diff is likely prevention.

[DetlefK]

9. "Hey Doc, this guy has some really healthy shit!"

"Wanna see?"

[htuttle]

10. Perhaps this is a simple question, but where do the gut bacteria come from?

I'm suddenly curious about something that I just realized that I don't know. How do we all end up with the same strains of bacteria in our guts?

I can see how a symbiotic relationship might build up between a multicellular species and bacteria. But how do those particular strains of bacteria get into our guts after we're each born? Are they plentiful in the natural environment, or does it require a human-inhabited local environment to create a stock of the little wrigglies to jump into our guts?

ON EDIT:
Just found the answer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora#Acquisition_of_gut_flora_in_human_infants