Great value Unlimited Broadband from an award winning provider

20 June 2016

Healthy poo therapy for a whole range of diseases

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a technique used to treat c.difficile infection by invading the gut with healthy microorganisms and kicking the nasty ones out.
Even though it's not a really well known method, it has been used for centuries all over the world. Animals do it, humans do it, doctors have been doing it for their patients, so why don't we know more about it? Of course we know why, because it sounds gross... and smelly... And quite frankly no one wants to know about it (see comments on my latest post).

Clostridium difficile (C.diff) are gram-positive spore-forming bacteria
What I've been wondering is whether this technique is being tested properly in clinical trials, and for what disease or condition?
To check this, I searched my favourite site Clinicaltrials.gov and typed a few key words including 'FMT', 'fecal microbiota transplantation'.

I was expecting a couple of hits with C.diff and obesity topping the list, but I ended up with more than 164hits.
This is the variety of conditions that are being treated with FMT:
Developmental coordination disorder
Obesity
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in obese or non-obese people
Metabolic syndrome
Ulcerative colitis in children, active or prevention of recurrence
Crohn's disease, children or adults, active or prevention of recurrence
Inflammatory bowel diseases in children
Irritable bowel syndrome with bloating or diarrhoea
Slow transit constipation 
Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction
Sclerosis chelangitis
Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis with or without metabolic syndrome
Severe alcoholic hepatitis Clostridium difficile infection, initial, recurrent, or refractory
Pancreatitis with or without infectious complications
Antibiotic-dependent pouchitis 
Treatment after bone marrow transplantation
Multidrug resistant organism reversal
MRSA enterocolitis
HIV complications

I was happily surprised to find in there 'Multidrug resistant organism reversal'.
Multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO) are common bacteria that have developed resistance to multiple types of antibiotics (aka superbugs). These bacteria are present on the body of many people, including on the skin, in the nose or other moist areas of the body and in secretions.
Hospital MRSA
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) have declared a state of emergency as MDRO, such as deadly MRSA in hospitals, are still unbeatable. Blame the overuse of antibiotics and the lack of funding or interest to find new ones!

Are you/Do you know someone affected by one of the conditions listed above? Do you think you/they would like to participate to one of these clinical trials?
Let me know in the comment section , I'd love to read your thoughts.

See you next Monday,

Previous poo-related posts:
Donate your poo to help people live a healthier life
Testing poop pill to cure obesity

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 

My bugs and I Published @ 2014 by Ipietoon