When we interviewed microbiome expert Rob Knight, we mentioned stool transplants.  For more, listen to this interview from KGNU about stool transplants and how they can sometimes cure a deadly disease known as c-diff colitis.   And while the story that follows might strike you as funny sometimes, the outcome is very serious–and serious in a good way.  This method has a high success rate for curing ulcerative colitis, so that “good bacteria” can reestablish themselves in the gut.

C-Diff colitis is a disease that causes severe inflammation of the digestive tract.  A standard medical treatment is antibiotics.  But while these kill “bad” bugs in the gut, they also wipe out the “good” bugs, which can lead to life-threatening colitis problems over time.  That’s why a Gastroenterologist in Duluth, Minnesota, Hans Aas (pronounced OH’ss) has worked so hard to find a way to re-inoculate his ulcerative colitis patients with “good” bacteria.   But before you listen in, we caution you that you might not be wanting to eat a snack right now, because Dr. Aas’ method involves, what he calls, a “stool transplant.”  The stool transplant is done through a nose tube that goes down into a person’s stomach.  This helps “good bacteria” to grow again in the intestines.  Dr. Aas says that he has used this technique to save the lives of many people in danger of dying from ulcerative cholitis.  We repeat again.  This whole story is true.  For more, KGNU’s Sam Fuqua reports:

Listen (scroll about 8 minutes in for the stool transplant interview)

And this research is so unlikely, well, here is some supporting documentation:

C Diff Support Group
Research Article on Stool Transplant,
Patent for Stool Transplant,
Duluth Clinic Health System (218) 786-8132,
Research Article U-Chicago Site,

Tags: antibiotics, c-diff, colitis, stool transplant

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Drug Counter, Experts, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.