The poo panacea: inside the strange, surprising world of faecal transplants

When treating antibiotic-resistant infections, injecting patients with other people ’s excrement can be highly effective. Could it be the answer to dementia, anorexia and obesity too?The man and woman are wearing blue hospital gowns and clear face shields. Dr James Sones and Dr Indu Srinivasan are in a room in the Division of Digestive Diseases at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. They are about to create something that has spread through medicine like, well, a shitstorm.Sones takes a brown gloopy material and spoons it into what looks like a regular kitchen blender. The camera zooms in to a label on it: faecal blender. The brown gloopy stuff is, depending on your profession and level of politeness, faecal matter, stool, excrement or poo. It has been donated by a generous volunteer and it is almost certainly going to transform the life of the person who is going to receive it.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Health & wellbeing Digestive disorders Microbiology Life and style Science Society Source Type: news