Back to last page  'Poop Pills' Used to Cure Colon Infections
News Review From Harvard Medical School  October 3, 2013  News
Review From Harvard Medical School -- 'Poop Pills' Used to Cure
Colon Infections  For several years, doctors have been curing
dangerous colon infections by transplanting feces containing
normal, healthy bacteria into the diseased colon. Now there's an
easier way to deliver the dose: poop pills. Actually, feces from
a donor are processed so there's nothing left but the bacteria.
Placed in pills and then swallowed, the healthy bacteria replace
the cause of infection: Clostridium difficile (C. diff). These
infections often occur in people who take antibiotics for
another reason. The drugs also kill healthy bacteria in the gut.
But C. diff lives in hardy spores that can become active when
other bacteria disappear. C. diff causes dangerous inflammation
and diarrhea. Doctors have used transplants of feces to cure C.
diff infections that keep coming back. The transplants were put
into the col