When I first heard about the idea of fecal transplants I was in my second year of medical school learning about a horrible condition called Pseudomembranous Colitis in my microbiology course. This condition is caused by antibiotics wiping out the good bacteria that reside in your intestines and allow the can normally reside in the gut in harmony with all your normal gut flora. However, when somebody is given a broad spectrum antibiotic (likely during a hospital stay) the majority of your gut flora can be knocked out leaving C. Difficile alone to flourish and take over. This leads to horrific diarrhea that prevents the individual from being able to take in the nutrients they require. Many times the standard treatment of stopping the offending antibiotic and following that with an antibiotic to targe C. Difficile works fine. However, sometimes that isn’t enough and the individual is left with a continued watery diarrhea and an inability to stomach anything substantial.
The lecture about this condition was being given by the Chair of Infectious Disease at MCV, Dr. Michael Edmond who proclaimed that there is a solution. It’s a rather unconventional idea but it works wonders. It’s called Fecal Transplantation. The reason I’m now writing about this is because it seems to be getting quite a bit of press coverage recently. There was a very good article in Wired on this topic and also, as I found out on Dr. Edmond’s blog, even Stephen Colbert covered the topic in his cheating death segment. Enjoy!
