Fecal Matter Transplants to Stool Bank Donations

Meet Clostridium difficile; a common bacteria found in the gut of many perfectly healthy people. It is generally only one of hundreds of bacterial species happily tucked away in the warm confines of your and my tummies. However, C. diff, as it is affectionately known, is a lot like ivy growing in the garden. If someone regularly prunes it, if other plants crowd it a bit, it can be a beautiful member of the garden community. But, if something happens so that the gardener and the other plants don't keep it in check, the ivy will overgrow the house and tear up the walls.


Here's the basic problem - there are many strains of C. diff that are antibiotic resistant. In a healthy person, this isn't a problem because the other bacteria in the gut compete for food with C. diff and everybody stays pretty balanced. However, sometimes when a person gets an infection and the doctor prescribes antibiotics, the other bacteria in the intestine die (there went the gardener) and C. diff is all alone to do whatever it wants. That's when the diarrhea starts.

"I'm sick doc, real sick"

And C. diff diarrhea is bad. It's painful. The patient loses weight, is dehydrated and can become very malnourished. According to the CDC, around fourteen thousand Americans die each year from C. diff infections. Way more people go through some terrible days and weeks while recovering, if they recover.

For a long time, the solution to a C. diff infection (that often began because of antibiotics use) was to treat it with more antibiotics. This approach had a hit and miss (mostly miss) success rate. If it didn't work, often the surviving C. diff in the patient aquired new antibiotic resistance together with the resistances it had previously (this is how "super-bugs" come into being and is the topic of much debate in the healthcare industry).

Fecal Matter Transplant

A recent idea by Thomas Borody (a gastroenterologist in Australia) has everyone grossed out, but feeling much better. The idea was this ... "bring back the gardener!". All those normal bacteria (the gut flora) that were originally helping to keep C. diff in check ... let's put them back.

Sound reasonable?

Yes. So reasonable in fact, that the new approach enjoys a 90% success rate among patients of all demographics. What's the catch, you ask? Well, you'll have to be okay sharing poop with another person.

If you want healthy gut flora, you'll have to go to a healthy person and get some. There are several variations of this theme, but they all involve screening some healthy people for good poo, making a poo smoothie, and putting the whole thing into the intestines of the sick person.

As gross as it sounds though, it works! It works like a charm, and health centers across the world are planning on storing poop in stool banks in the same way they store blood in blood banks. Next time you feel guilty because you can't give blood ... now there's another way for you to change a life, and it won't involve needles.

If you don't believe me, see for yourself:

 

For more information, follow these links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/stool-transplants-clostridium-difficile-gut-bug_n_2216991.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy
http://www.mayoclinic.org/medicalprofs/fecal-transplants-ddue1012.html