Poop pills to cure serious gut ailments

It is a disgusting topic but a serious problem. Each year, about half a million people get Clostridium difficile, or C-diff and 14,000 die.

A very potent and expensive antibiotic can kill C-diff but also ends up destroying the good bacteris of the gut leaving it more vulnerable for infections in future. Studies conducted recently showed that fecal transplants (giving infected people stool from a health donor), can restore the balance.

Thomas Louie, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary, devised a better way – a one-time treatment custom-made for each patient. Donor stool, usually from a relative, is processed in the lab to take out food and extract the bacteris and clean it. It is then packed into triple-coated gel capsules so they won’t dissolve until they reach the intestines.

‘There is no stool left, just stool bugs. These people are not eating poop, and there are no smelly burps because the contents aren’t released until they are well past the stomach’. Louie said. ‘Days before starting the treatment patients are given an antibiotic to kill the C-diff. On the morning of the treatment they have an enema so the new bacteris coming in have a clean slate’.

Dr. Ajay Sati.