Pretty relevant.
In order to treat C-diff, an antibiotic-resistant superbug that’s causing some 15,000 deaths a year in the United States, doctors began trying a new treatment: fecal transplants.
What is a fecal transplant, you ask? Well, it’s like an organ transplant, except that it’s done with poop. After a healthy poop donor is found, doctors take a fresh stool sample from him, liquefy it and drip it into the patient’s colon. The purpose of that being to colonize the unhealthy colon with bacteria from the healthy feces, thus eliminating the superbug.
An entire bacterial neighborhood is transplanted, almost like an organ transplant minus the anti-rejection drugs, says Dr. Alexander Khoruts of the University of Minnesota. He took a genetic fingerprint of the gut bacteria in a woman left emaciated after eight months of severe C-diff. Not only did the diarrhea disappear after a fecal transplant, but that normal bacteria mirroring her husband’s — the donor — quickly took root in her recovering intestine.
Is it gross? Yes. Does it save lives? Yes.
