Sam and I may be giving away the store, dispensing poop on you people without expecting a little remuneration in return. A Canadian doctor has been treating difficult-to-cure, persistent Clostridium difficile infections with poop pills and Sam and I are wishing we’d thought of that. Money in the bank, Cha-ching!
We kid you not! We originally picked this story up on Seattle’s King 5 News. Further research on the internet yielded a story about the poop pills on the web site of CBC News / Calgary.
According to an article in the CBC News/Calgary, C. difficile infections (as they are called) reportedly occur when people on antibiotics ingest spores of the bacterium. “If the people are on antibiotics for something else, the antibiotics can disrupt the person's normal gut flora” — various “good” bacteria - that normally live harmoniously in a person's gastro-intestinal tract. “Once C. difficile bacteria starts flourishing it causes persistent and lifestyle-limiting (to say the least!) diarrhea.” While most people who develop C. difficile can be cured by strong antibiotics via enemas or some other really fun activity, some fail treatment repeatedly.
Canadian infectious diseases expert Dr. Tom Louie, a pioneer in the use of fecal transplants for C. difficile infections developed the poop pills and has treated 27 patients with his little handmade gems. All 27 patients treated with the poop pills have been cleared of their infections. Evidently, fecal material from a healthy person, which is rich with normal gut bacteria, will re-establish balance in the colon of the C. diff sufferer — and in many cases it does.
“Uh, what’s that you’re giving me doc? Hope it’s not one of them placebos.”
“Oh, I assure you these pills are not placebos.”
The CBC reports that “the pills currently used by Dr. Louie can't be mass produced and given to just anyone who wants to try a fecal transplant for recurrent C. diff infection. Each patient is administered his or her own set of pills, containing bacteria from the stools of a healthy relative in most cases.
“To make his capsules, Louie takes stool from donors and processes the material down to just the bacteria within the stool. From between 150 and 200 grams of stool he gets two to three teaspoons of concentrate, which he says have the consistency of river mud or clay, and that, diluted, is piped into capsules. Each pill is encased in three layers of gelatin capsules, to ensure they can survive the trip through the highly-acidic stomach.”
“People usually are at their wit's end when they turn to Dr. Louie or other infectious diseases specialists who have been using fecal transplants,” the CBCD reports (really?). “When they need help to cure their infection. Dr. Louie says contrary to what one might expect, patients are well beyond "the ick factor" by the time they come looking for help.”
Describing his procedure to fellow scientists at a conference in San Francisco recently, Dr. Louie said, “They (the patients) came in for lunch on an empty stomach ... and took 24 to 30 pills on average."
No S --t! That’s the straight poop people. Let’s NOT do lunch!
We kid you not! We originally picked this story up on Seattle’s King 5 News. Further research on the internet yielded a story about the poop pills on the web site of CBC News / Calgary.
According to an article in the CBC News/Calgary, C. difficile infections (as they are called) reportedly occur when people on antibiotics ingest spores of the bacterium. “If the people are on antibiotics for something else, the antibiotics can disrupt the person's normal gut flora” — various “good” bacteria - that normally live harmoniously in a person's gastro-intestinal tract. “Once C. difficile bacteria starts flourishing it causes persistent and lifestyle-limiting (to say the least!) diarrhea.” While most people who develop C. difficile can be cured by strong antibiotics via enemas or some other really fun activity, some fail treatment repeatedly.
Canadian infectious diseases expert Dr. Tom Louie, a pioneer in the use of fecal transplants for C. difficile infections developed the poop pills and has treated 27 patients with his little handmade gems. All 27 patients treated with the poop pills have been cleared of their infections. Evidently, fecal material from a healthy person, which is rich with normal gut bacteria, will re-establish balance in the colon of the C. diff sufferer — and in many cases it does.
“Uh, what’s that you’re giving me doc? Hope it’s not one of them placebos.”
“Oh, I assure you these pills are not placebos.”
The CBC reports that “the pills currently used by Dr. Louie can't be mass produced and given to just anyone who wants to try a fecal transplant for recurrent C. diff infection. Each patient is administered his or her own set of pills, containing bacteria from the stools of a healthy relative in most cases.
“To make his capsules, Louie takes stool from donors and processes the material down to just the bacteria within the stool. From between 150 and 200 grams of stool he gets two to three teaspoons of concentrate, which he says have the consistency of river mud or clay, and that, diluted, is piped into capsules. Each pill is encased in three layers of gelatin capsules, to ensure they can survive the trip through the highly-acidic stomach.”
“People usually are at their wit's end when they turn to Dr. Louie or other infectious diseases specialists who have been using fecal transplants,” the CBCD reports (really?). “When they need help to cure their infection. Dr. Louie says contrary to what one might expect, patients are well beyond "the ick factor" by the time they come looking for help.”
Describing his procedure to fellow scientists at a conference in San Francisco recently, Dr. Louie said, “They (the patients) came in for lunch on an empty stomach ... and took 24 to 30 pills on average."
No S --t! That’s the straight poop people. Let’s NOT do lunch!
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