Everyone perceives their stool as disgusting…and yes, it is, in all honesty. They contain numerous bacteria that are mostly alive. However, would you believe if a person told you that your poop can save life?
That’s ridiculous, you say? Your poop comes in handy during a treatment procedure fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) which is performed on patients suffering from repeated clostridium difficile infection.
What you need to know about clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is that it is infectious diarrhoea. Along with abdominal pain, it causes bloating and diarrhoea, which further can become sever, if left untreated. Though treatment is possible through antibiotics, relapses in such cases have been minimal.
One might wonder what could be the alternate procedure if antibiotics cannot treat CDI.
That is where fecal microbiota transplantation plays its part. The procedure requires a fecal microbiota preparation where stool from a healthy patient is transplanted into the patient’s colon.The patient need not worry about fecal bacteria since it is mixed with saline, then strained and reintroduced into the patient’s colon through enema.
Actually, the size of the poop comes into play, too, as it decides the number of people that can be treated. Below is an illustration of the same –
The size of poop decides how many people can be saved
Fecal transplantation might seem gross to people today, but it was documented in the 4th century China, where it was labelled “yellow soup”.
Now, if the procedure convinces you and probably encourages you to make donation, it is important to know that the process is not that simple. Just like blood donation, fecal donation has its set of criteria. If you are one of the lucky donors, you can make up to $13,000 per year.
Scientists and doctors are looking for diseases that fecal microbiota transplantation can apparently treat. However, till date, just one – C. difficile – is the only disease that has been fully explored.
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