permaculture

[venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

On 12/8/2012 9:07 PM, venaurafarm wrote:
> On 12/8/2012 7:28 PM, Scott Pittman wrote:
> > Please include citations on Fecal Transfers, this is the first I've heard of
> > it and it sounds like one of those things like Hoxsey, and other healers who
> > were hounded to death (literally) by the AMA for threatening the cash flow.
>
> It was in the news very recently. It was tried on a patient needing an
> implant of new, common, beneficial digestive tract microorganisms from
> someone else when their own were lacking or the wrong kind. It may have
> been a BBC medical report. I posted the link to Facebook and Google+ too
> I think. The article went on to say that future treatments of this sort
> would use extracts of the viable components of the fecal matter donated
> by another healthy person. The implant was prepared in a lab, a dilute
> solution of water and fecal matter and administered to the patient
> through a feeding tube directly into their stomach. It worked and a life
> was saved. The link should be easy to find; I'll post it when I do.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20081895
 25 October 2012 Last updated at 18:36 ET
'Faecal transplant' clue to treating gut bug
By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
C. difficile bacteria C. difficile bacteria live in many people's guts
    Do faecal transplants have a medical role?
    Gut's hospital bug defence found
    MRSA and C. diff deaths falling
The gut infection Clostridium difficile can be defeated by a cocktail of 
rival good bacteria, experiments in mice show.

When C. difficile bacteria overwhelm the gut, it can be fatal and 
difficult to treat with antibiotics.

A UK team showed a combination of six bacteria could clear the infection.

The study, published in PLoS Pathogens, builds on faecal transplant 
procedures - which are used to introduce competing bacteria.

<....>

[LONG]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15113440
 11 December 2011 Last updated at 18:59 ET

Faecal transplants used to cure Clostridium difficile
By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News

    Long-term plan needed for C. diff
    Apology over 'superbug' outbreak

Transplanting faecal matter from one person to another - the thought 
might turn your stomach, but it could be lifesaving.

Some doctors are using the procedure to repopulate the gut with healthy 
bacteria, which can become unbalanced in some diseases.

Dr Alisdair MacConnachie, who thinks he is the only UK doctor to carry 
out the procedure for Clostridium difficle infection, describes it as a 
proven treatment.

He says it should be used, but only as a treatment of last resort.

The logic is simple.
Continue reading the main story 
“Start Quote

    It sounds disgusting, it is disgusting”

Dr Alisdair MacConnachie Gartnavel General Hospital

C. difficile infection is caused by antibiotics wiping out swathes of 
bacteria in the gut. It gives the surviving C. difficile bacteria room 
to explode in numbers and produce masses of toxins which lead to 
diarrhoea and can be fatal.

The first-choice solution, more antibiotics, does not always work and 
some patients develop recurrent infection.

The theory is that by adding more bacteria to the bowels, they will 
compete with C. difficile bacteria and control the infection.

Dr MacConnachie, from Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow, has 
performed just over 20 of the operations since he started in 2003.

"Ultimately all the patients I've treated, bar one, has got rid of their 
C. difficile," he said.
The procedure

If normal treatments fail to work, the patient will be given antibiotics 
up to the night before the operation, when their pills will be swapped 
for those to control stomach acid.

On the morning of the procedure, the donor will come into hospital and 
produce a sample.

A relative is generally used, preferably one who lives with the patient, 
because living in the same environment and eating the same food means 
they are more likely to have similar bowel bacteria.

About 30g (1oz) is taken and blitzed in a household blender with some 
salt water. This is poured through a coffee filter to leave a watery liquid.

Dr MacConnachie inserts a tube up the patient's nose and down to the 
stomach. Other doctors use a different route to the bowels.

About 30ml (1fl oz) of liquid is poured down the tube.

"My personal view is that this technique is there for patients who have 
tried all the traditional treatments," Dr MacConnachie.

"If a patient doesn't respond to that and still gets recurrent C. 
difficile then they're in real trouble and there isn't really any other 
technique or any other treatment that has the proven efficacy that 
faecal transplant does."

I asked him why, if that was true, were more doctors in the UK not 
carrying out the procedure: "It's a published technique, I guess people 
are scared of it.
Continue reading the main story 
“Start Quote

    It looks like a terrific approach to a wide variety of diseases”

Prof Lawrence Brandt Montefiore Medical Center in New York

"It sounds disgusting, it is disgusting and I think people are probably 
worried about approaching patients and discussing it."

That is not a problem faced by Prof Lawrence Brandt, a 
gastroenterologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

He says he now gets between two and four emails a day from people who 
want a transplant. So far he has carried out the procedure 42 times.

He remembers the first in 1999: "She called me within six hours of me 
doing the faecal transplant saying she didn't know what I did in there, 
but she felt better than she'd felt for six months and in fact she never 
had recurrence of that C. difficile."

As well as patients, he says there are more doctors expressing an 
interest in the US.

"Within the next six months or year, this will be the most exciting 
thing that's happened to gastroenterology. It will change the way that 
certainly C. difficile is treated and many other diseases too."

Irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhoea and constipation are also on his 
list of possible applications. "It looks like a terrific approach to a 
wide variety of diseases," he says.
Proof?

The practice has been reported only as a series of small case by case 
studies for recurrent C. difficile infection.

There has been an average success rate about 90%. However, this is not 
enough for the technique to be widely adopted.

The gold standard for determining if a treatment works is a randomised 
clinical trial - taking a large group of patients and giving one set the 
therapy and another a placebo or pretend therapy. The two groups are 
compared to see if the treatment really makes a difference.

Until such a trial takes place, widespread acceptance will be difficult 
achieve.