Sunday, October 26, 2008

Stool transplants

Interesting biology news of the day
So out there in the medical field, people do many interesting things to try and cure things. The bacteria C. difficile infects the intestinal lining, destroying all those lovely proteins that break down food for us. Living up to its name, the bacteria is très difficile to get rid of. Sometimes antibiotics will get rid of it, but usually it just returns. The bacteria causes major diarrhea, which is very unpleasant. But it seems like doctors in Minneapolis have successfully treated patients with this bacteria. Because the bacteria destroys all the helpful bacteria within the colon, the solution appeared to put the bacteria back into the colon. Your own normal bacteria wouldn't work because C. difficile would just destroy it again. But it has been tested that by putting somebody elses stool into the colon, it gets rid of the bacteria. Very bizarre and a tad bit gross.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

whoah that is very bizarre. i guess we shouldn't rly be that surprised since the discovery of vaccines was putting the virus back into ur system too.

Billy said...

yeah but virus is different than taking shit and putting it back lol