Fecal Microbiota Transplants

It's icky, it's disgusting. But you know, this is just an editorial comment by me. People got to get over this ick business. I mean, surgery is icky - Steve Mirsky

image by: OpenBiom

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Fecal Transplants: The Straight Poop

So fecal transplants—what are they?

Fecal transplants are based on the understanding that all of us carry around in our gut, in our intestines, a complex community of bacteria that are actually larger in aggregate than the rest of us. There are actually more bacterial cells in our intestines than there are cells that belong to us in the rest of our bodies. And most of the time that incredibly complex community works in a really interesting harmony to do all sorts of things for us: to extract nutrients from our food, to tune up our immune systems, to keep our reactions to things in our environment, from revving out of control the way that allergies do, for instance.

But…

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Fecal Transplant Is Linked to a Patient’s Death, the F.D.A. Warns

The agency said two patients received donated stool that had not been screened for drug-resistant germs, leading it to halt clinical trials until researchers prove proper testing procedures are in place.

New evidence suggests there’s a much easier way to get a fecal transplant

Fecal transplants are an increasingly useful treatment for a range of ailments—but getting one is not a pleasant process. Now new research into the treatment of Clostridium difficile suggests there may be a much easier way to replenish the beneficial bacteria of the gut that’s just as effective: fecal pills, which are simply swallowed.