'Eating poo is good for you'

Eating poo is a therapy, no shit. Okay, in all seriousness the process involves the ingestion of faeces orally or trans-rectally as a treatment for a variety of conditions, including bowel disease, type 2 diabetes and a whole host of inflammatory conditions. Inflammatory bowel disorders can have many causes however, one of the causes may be down to having the wrong bacteria in your gut. By ingesting faeces from a healthy donor you can replace pathogenic bacteria with a healthy bacterial flora. These commensal bacteria are essential for normal nutrition and are key to maintaining health. Recent research suggests that the human gut may contain up to 30,000 different species of bacteria.

Due to the over use of antibiotics, disease causing bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotic treatment. Resistant organisms are posing serious problems and concerns for doctors treating infectious disease. Faecal transplants have been shown to be highly effective in treating patients with antibiotic resistant Clostridium difficule infections. In the US alone, this infection is responsible for 110,000 deaths a year.

 

Faecal therapy was once considered a last line treatment for disease. However, due to its effectiveness, it is fast becoming the first line treatment of choice for a range of disparate disorders.