I’ve known since I was a schoolboy that the human digestive system was helped along the way by the teeming masses of bacteria that live inside us, symbiotically breaking down tough-to-digest foodstuffs into molecules we can absorb.
That’s one of the reasons we fart, after all, because of all the waste gas produced by bacteria that are teeming in our guts.
More recently, I’ve also read that some antibiotics can kill this beneficial bacteria, leaving people with temporary digestive problems. There’s some interesting research that suggests your appendix is a place for this good bacteria to “hide out” during times of stress, and to recolonize your gut later.
But what if there’s something wrong with your bacteria, and it can’t recolonize your insides? Or what if there’s plenty there, but it’s just not doing its job?
The solution, at least for one woman, was a poop transplant. Yes, seriously. From her husband. Do not try this at home. The New York Times takes you through it:
In 2008, Dr. Khoruts, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, took on a patient suffering from a vicious gut infection of Clostridium difficile. She was crippled by constant diarrhea, which had left her in a wheelchair wearing diapers. Dr. Khoruts treated her with an assortment of antibiotics, but nothing could stop the bacteria. His patient was wasting away, losing 60 pounds over the course of eight months. “She was just dwindling down the drain, and she probably would have died,” Dr. Khoruts said.
Dr. Khoruts decided his patient needed a transplant. But he didn’t give her a piece of someone else’s intestines, or a stomach, or any other organ. Instead, he gave her some of her husband’s bacteria.
Dr. Khoruts mixed a small sample of her husband’s stool with saline solution and delivered it into her colon. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology last month, Dr. Khoruts and his colleagues reported that her diarrhea vanished in a day. Her Clostridium difficile infection disappeared as well and has not returned since.
It’s not new, although it’s not common. And the difference this time was that Dr. Khoruts did a before-and-after genetic survey of the bacteria.
The Times article goes into much more detail about human-bacteria symbiosis than I ever knew. Did you know that people born vaginally have different bacterial colonies than people born via C-section? Or that each of your teeth has a unique bacterial signature? That each side of each tooth is unique?
Very cool.
Grant Hamilton
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