Transplanting Poop Could Treat Gut Infections
Newly published research suggests that common bacteria that can cause severe stomach and gut infections can be wiped out of the digestive system by taking feces from a healthy animal and transplanting it into the infected gut.
The research team carried out tests on mice and found that the infections could be treated incredibly quickly and that the results showed a remarkable success rate at combating Klebsiella pneumoniae and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. Both of these bacteria have also proved to be resistant to drugs and antibiotics. This has given researchers hope that the technique may be able to be used in humans in the future.
The study was carried out by Eric Pamer, the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York but the team has warned that much more wok would need to be done before it could be considered for human testing.
Mark Morrison, Chair of Microbial Biology and Metagenomics at the University of Queensland, explained how transplanting poop could help. “Using a dose of other gut microbes through faecal transplantation appears to effectively displace these antibiotic resistant microbes, which warrants further investigation.”
