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Feces-Filled Capsules Treat Bacterial Infection

sciencehabit writes Clostridium difficile infections kill approximately 14,000 Americans every year, often because the diarrhea-causing bacteria are highly resistant to standard antibiotics. Now, scientists have found an unusual way to combat the bugs: human feces in pill form. In the new study, researchers show that frozen fecal matter encapsulated in clear, 1.6 g synthetic pills was just as safe and effective as traditional fecal transplant techniques at treating C. difficile. Within 8 weeks or less, 18 out of 20 participants saw a complete resolution of diarrhea after consuming 30 or 60 of the feces-filled capsules. "It's probably not the best experience of your life," says team leader Ilan Youngster, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at Harvard University. "But it beats getting a tube stuck down your throat or a colonoscopy or having C. diff."

6 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. It's probably not the best experience of your life by Psicopatico · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's probably not the best experience of your life

    Talk about the poor chinese laborer who assembles the pills...

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  2. Suppository form works just fine. by jpellino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, that's been the preferred method so far. People gong on massive antibiotics have stockpiled frozen fecal suppositories with perfectly good results. Not FDA approves since it's not been properly tested until recently.

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  3. Re:Timeframe? by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Once you've been crapping your organs out for a couple months, I'm sure you'd be willing to try just about anything.

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  4. Perspective by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    For some perspective, C. dificile kills 16,000 people per year in the United States. Compare that to how many people have died from Ebola.

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    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Re: Timeframe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My stepfather had c. Diff last year. It isn't run of the mill diarrhea. Remember that scene in dumb and dumber with the laxative pill? Something like that. You are physically exhausted and your body is destroying itself. It spreads infection, your immune system goes haywire, your kidneys and liver work overtime breaking things down.

    They quarantined my stepfather and told us that he probably wouldn't make it due to his age. He was put on antibiotics and morphine. I kept complaining to nurses that antibiotics actually caused this (he cut his fingertip and they gave him a dose 3x higher than necessary, if he needed it at all) and to look at alternatives but they don't really care. So many patients to treat, so little time. Nurses said the poop transplant was the option of last resort(even with 90% success rate) and that they would continue with antibiotics. My stepfather was pretty lucky to survive it and is now cautious about antibiotic use.

    If standard diarrhea clears up in 8 weeks, is that in any way useful if you're dead in two?

  6. Re:Dunno about you but by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 5, Funny

    This article is full of Sh!t

    That's nothing, the pills taste like crap...

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