Pills made from poop could cure serious gut infections

Mods, I know this title drew you like a magnet, but I swear, this was the title on the link to this article...

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

WHAT????? Fecal Transplants????? Are you freakin sh^%$ing me?

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.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? THROAT TUBES????????

SOURCE

Seriously??? Is this a joke?

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.

NO NO AND HELL NO!!!

Why is it that soft drinks company can make a sweetener off of the fecal matter left by feeding bacteria, but yet our scientific community can only do "Fecal Transplants" versus growing the bacteria needed to achieve this???? Clean it? then put it in a pill????? Am I the only person saying WTF?????

Honestly, I am losing faith in our scientific community.............sigh

I am a dead man, if this is the kind of treatment needed to save my life or make me healthy......

reply to post by seeker1963

I guess it is better than the other way at the problem.

That crazy kid down the street and his dog were way ahead of us.

HI seeker.

Well, just like they found a way to dispose of all the fluoride from the chem factories (we drink it for them), they've now found a way to get rid of all the sewerage, we eat it for them

Get a dog! Provides constant contact with all the bugs allowing owner to develop a natural healthy immune system.

Fecal Transplants

LOL That reminded me of the Red Dwarf episode where everything was running backwards, and the Cat went into the bushes for a #2....remember everything was running backwards!

Ahh yes... and you thought you were stuck for what to get the person who has everything? Silly silly shopper, you. You couldn't have imagined! Now buy this for that special someone not quite full of crap to the degree you know they should be!

If taken like M&M's, you're promised to be full of it in no time flat.

** Not necessary for people working in the White House, members of Congress or anyone else with a GS Rank, seeing as how they are already overflowing with it and are better serving as donors.

Pretty much makes you not want to get gut infections in the first place!

I say cut out the middle man and chew on a log. Pharma profiting from your waste...typical...

Å99

I don't know guys,

It DOES sound very disgusting if you put it in those terms. But, if you think about it, other strange things have been discovered to be beneficial for our health. For example, antibiotics being made from mold. I think if I had a life-threatening illness, and I had to take pills like that to get better, I would. I think coming up with a treatment in pill form for intestinal illness is actually quite clever really... and as was mentioned in the OP, the stool is cleaned and bacteria removed before being put in caplets. Think about the probiotics you can buy at your local Walgreen's.. the little pills full of bacteria that are supposed to help with digestion and regularity. I would provide a link to an example, but I am pretty new to ATS still, and I haven't figured out yet how to insert links.

This new idea about using stool to aid digestive illness really doesn't surprise me, but I am skeptical. I would have to read more into this new "treatment" before taking it for being real. But, very interesting post OP. Thanks for sharing!