In the U.S., Clostridium difficile causes a quarter million hospitalizations and kills 14,000 people a year. These severe-diarrhea-causing bacteria resist treatment in many patients, and the rest of the time, the antibiotics kill off normal gut microbes that help keep pathologic species in check. Doctors have increasingly turned to a procedure called “fecal microbiotia transplantation” (FMT), which delivers fresh fecal material to help restore the normal balance of beneficial microbes.
These fecal transplants are about 90 percent successful, but they typically require invasive and uncomfortable colonoscopies or nasogastric tubes, which run from the nose down to the stomach.Now it looks like frozen poop pills may be just as effective, according to results from a small pilot study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
To investigate the safety of simple oral capsules, Scientists enrolled 20 patients, ages 11 to 89, who’ve had at least two to three episodes of C. difficile infection. Some have had to be hospitalized, some haven't improve with traditional treatments. Stool samples were taken from healthy volunteers, then filtered, diluted, screened, and placed into capsules, which were stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius for four weeks.
The patients took 15 capsules a day for two consecutive days. About the size of a large vitamin, these 1.6-gram capsules are designed to open when they reach the small intestine. (Unfortunately, acid-resistant capsules are clear, but if you take it out of the freezer and swallow it really fast, the frost might help obscure the contents.) he overall success rate for the frozen capsules was 90 percent -- making them just as safe and effective as traditional fecal transplant techniques.
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