Who woulda thought swallowing shit might actually improve one’s health?
by Shimbo
This might be a pill too hard to swallow, but the key to surviving a pesky disease that kills up to 14,000 Americans a year might just be found in your toilet after a hearty meal.
Of course, no one expects you to turn your toilet bowl into a soup bowl, so researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital have now made the healing powers of poop available in the form of a pill.
Clostridium difficile colitis (also known as C. difficile) is a cause of infectious diarrhea due to a type of spore-forming bacteria, whose symptoms often mimic some flu-like symptoms. C. difficile releases toxins that can cause bloating and diarrhea, with abdominal pain, which may become severe, and if untreated can cause death.
Often caused as a side effect of using antibiotics, C. difficile, is usually treated by no longer using the antibiotics in question, however, stronger cases require treatment via the use of a wholly different antibiotic regimen, which let’s be honest, seems just a little counterproductive.
Another, albeit undesirable treatment for C. difficle is a little something called Fecal Transplant. Basically, doctors take shit from a healthy subject and give it to the patient, with the benefit of stopping the infection via the restoration of healthy gut bacteria. It’s about as disgusting as you think, as the procedure requires delivery of a sort of “poop soup” via the rectum or a tube inserted through the nose. Of course this is not easy since shoving a tube up someone’s nose can cause a gag reflex to kick up and not only are the poor bastards inhaling shit, they also end up puking it back up, thereby providing a lifetime of nightmares, and likely death, because who wants to go through that shit again? (Pun intended)
Enter the Poop Pill.
A mixture of strained shit mixed with saline, the poop is placed into capsules and frozen. Taken for just two days, a new JAMA study shows that the treatment is remarkably effective as a method of fecal transplant, without the difficulty that comes along with it. According to the New York Times, 19 of 20 patients with C. difficile infections were effectively cured of all symptoms.
As with all generally awesome solutions, the poop pill is still only in testing phases, so if you’re suffering from C. difficile, chances are you’ll have to find your remedy the old fashioned way, however, since fecal transplants are considered nearly twice as effective as using plain old antibiotics, interest in the treatment is increasing, with a number of experimental solutions using shit in the test phase, including other types of poop pills, and even a poop powder than can be kept at room temperature. However, it’s hard to say how poop powder would be used, possibly in a drink mix?
In any case, those suffering from what is increasingly becoming a more recognized and debilitating disease now have some measure of hope to look forward to.
And that’s no bullshit.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Uncle Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet