Curing Gut Problems With Synthetic Pseudo-Poo
Clostridium difficile Wikimedia Commons When it comes to therapeutic fecal transplants, sometimes the real stuff just won't cut it. Poop slinging isn't just for monkeys anymore -- in this day and age, you can also pay a doctor to do it. Fecal transplants, which have been around since at least 1958, aim to correct an upset in the normal bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract by introducing someone else's waste into it, in the hopes that it will restore the balance of microbes necessary for normal digestion. With a 90 percent success rate, it's gross, but effective. The process is much how you would imagine it -- a small amount of donor feces are inserted into the intestines during a colonoscopy or with an enema. The latest discovery in the realm of medical poop treatments may make the procedure less icky: Researchers are developing a synthetic version. Normally, when feces from...