Researchers are reporting that poop transplants are as effective as antibiotics when used to treat a common and deadly cause of diarrhea.
Per their findings, the believe is that the transplants could be better, and suggests that doctors should try fecal transplants right off when patients in the hospital get infected with Clostridium difficile, which is a frequent cause of diarrhea in frail, sick, and weak patients.
Per the Norweigan teams’ report in the New England Journal of Medicine, the carefully cultivated and curated samples cured half the patients who took them immediately, and most that didn’t experience immediate results saw their diarrhea clear up when they were given antibiotics later.
“This was a small trial, but the results suggest that fecal microbiota transplantation may be an alternative to antibiotic therapy in primary C. difficile infection,” Dr. Frederick Juul of Oslo University Hospital and colleagues wrote in a letter to the New England Journal.
C. difficile infections kill 29,000 Americans a year and are responsible for making 450,000 Americans sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Poop transplants aim to restore the balance with healthy bacteria.
