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Gut Bacteria Cocktail May End Need for Fecal Transplants
sciencehabit writes "A tonic of gut microbes may be the secret recipe for treating a common hospital scourge. Researchers have pinpointed the exact mix of microbes required to cure mice of chronic infection by Clostridium difficile. The hard-to-treat bacterium infects alomst 336,000 in the US each year and causes bloating, pain, & diarrhea. A similar bacterial cocktail may be able to replace the current controversial treatment involving the intake of a healthy person's fecal matter to restore the right balance of microbes in the gut."
To get an idea of how gut bacteria are that important: we are made of about 10e13 human cells, and we contain 10e14 gut bacterial, for about 2 kg of mass. Let a subset of the gut bacteria population become hostile pathogens, and you see that we can easily be outnumbered by attackers.
It's not inserted into the stomach. Whoever wrote that doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, or is listening to someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. It's inserted into the small bowel via the colon using the same equipment used in colonoscopies. And it's not controversial. If you have C. diff, you are suffering so horribly that grossness of the procedure just doesn't enter the equation. And the fecal transplant method is incredibly effective, and incredibly quick to solve the problem. People who have been in agony for weeks get so much better in a few hours they can be discharged from the hospital. The only issue is that fecal transplants aren't yet covered by insurance. But they aren't that expensive, less than a grand out of pocket.
This treatment is nothing but a load of crap.
News for Turds
Stuff that Splatters
If I'm unfortunate to get this illness, please don't tell me the cure.
If you are unfortunate enough to get this illness you will welcome the cure with open bowels.
I would never ever wish C-Diff on anyone, not even my worst enemy. After the wife was put on broad spectrum antibiotics for an ear infection, then came what we thought was a bit of the flu or stomach virus (a.k.a. the trotts). Never-ending trotts. After exploratory colonoscopy & cultures to verify, & several different rounds of antibiotics, what finally worked for us was one last round of antibiotics combined with an insane intake of yogurt & probiotics (as we were finishing off the antibiotics). I think it was the combination that worked for us. We now start a (paranoid) regimen of yogurt & pro-biotics whenever someone is on antibiotics. Would we have gone for the "shit enema" (as unappealing as that sounds)? Perhaps. Let me put it this way, after weeks of the most debilitating pain (doubled over in pain), not eating for days, and blood literally pouring out your hind end, you are ready to grasp at anything that might work. Wife said that child birth had nothing on the C-Diff pains (& she went through 2 births with not so much as an aspirin -- another story. . .). I'll joke about a lot of things, but not this. So if this works (faster), more power to it. Oh yeah, cases of C-Diff are on the rise -- yay ( http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mens_Health_Watch/2010/June/clostridium-difficile-an-intestinal-infection-on-the-rise & http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/06/148072242/deaths-from-dangerous-gut-bacteria-hit-historic-highs ).
Eating yogurt is not a homeopathic remedy. Look up what homeopathic means.
Eating yogurt is a simple treatment, and as the grandparent's quote indicates it is significantly effective at reducing the incidence of diarrhea in cases of gut flora loss (due to antibiotics usually). However, it is significantly less effective when the problem is specifically c.difficile overgrowth.
So if you're taking antibiotics, get a probiotic yogurt, it is likely to help. If you do end up with c. diff, you may need another type of treatment.
Do not underestimate the laziness of the average American.
A common and largely incorrect sentiment suggesting you just have never bothered to think it through all the way. The brilliant realization that drove bottled water out of the original, much smaller Evian market (remember all those hipster T-shirts from the 90's that spelled it backward?) and into the world of Dasani (which is merely the filtered water used by your local Coca-Cola bottler) was that water is widely available for free, but cold water that you can carry with you was not. You could, of course, choose to carry your own water bottle, which many people do when going to the gym or other predictable activity, but on a long journey this is not a good solution. You might choose to carry a cooler and fill it with ice and a few bottles of cold water that you would refill at leisure, if traveling by car, but even then that's a lot of work (and if you have to replenish ice, a bag is likely to cost more than several liters of water, especially if you get the cheaper brands). If traveling by air, bottles of chilled water are nearly the only method to achieve this goal (due to the restrictions on liquids). And if you're flying somewhere, why worry about the tiny additional cost of a couple of bottles of water compared to the hundreds of dollars you spent to get there?
The same logic explains why a two liter bottle of soda at room temperature sells for the same price as a chilled half-liter bottle of the same stuff in a gas station. You are mostly paying for portability (i.e., it fits in your car cupholder) and chilling, not the liquid inside. You can get a better deal by buying fountain drinks, but they go flat faster and have a much higher risk of spill than a bottle with a screw-on cap.