Friday, February 03, 2012

Fecal Transplant

The new treatment for Clostridium difficle, commonly known as c-diff. I sh-- you not.

2 comments:

  1. Sort of new: Since 1999, says the article. I can imagine one of the less sanitary holistic health stores advertising their granola as -- enriched.

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  2. I read about this a while back and found it extremely interesting, but didn't think I could post about it without grossing everyone out. They get 90% cure rates for a disease that wasn't responding at all well to conventional treatment with antibiotics. The article I read pointed out that doctors were going to have to come to terms with the treatment, because it's awfully easy for laymen to try it out on their own. Of course, if it were to become popular in conventional medicine, they'd have to figure out a way to repackage it until it was virtually unrecognizable.

    I also read recently about a novel theory that the real purpose and advantage of the appendix is to serve as a reservoir of useful gut bacteria after the usual culture has been destroyed by some disease like dysentery or cholera. People who have had their appendix removed suffer statistically higher incidences of things like c. difficile reinfections.

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