Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that produces sever inflammation of the colon and accompanying diarrhea that kills 14,000 people in the United States every year. Dr. Elizabeth Hohmann of the Massachusetts General Hospital Infectious Diseases Division and colleagues are the first to develop an oral noninvasive treatment for the disease that has a 95 percent success rate.
Previous research has indicated that Clostridium difficile can be cured by the insertion of feces from uninfected people into the colon of people that are infected. The disease free feces reestablish the bacterial community of the infected person’s colon. The disease has become increasingly resistant to antibiotics. The new research proved that similar results can be obtained with a pill containing disease free feces.
The small trial involved 20 people with an active Clostridium difficile infection. The donor’s feces were examined for any disease infection and any allergens. The stool samples were frozen and examined again before being administered to the patients. Each trial participant consumed 15 feces laden capsules on two consecutive days.
Seventy percent of the participants recovered from the Clostridium difficile after a single treatment. Ninety-five percent of the patients recovered from the disease after a second treatment one week after the first treatment. One patient had the disease recur after treatment.
The capsule is designed to withstand the acid environment of the stomach and deliver the curative feces to the colon. The pill method is preferable to the administration into the colon or the administration of clean frozen feces through a nasal tube into the stomach. The treatment may be a bit unappetizing but a 95 percent success rate in a small trial argues for large scale trails. One could say “Eat feces and live”.
