This week in science, I finished my postcards that I was working on about the digestive system and my project on fecal transplants. Now, the digestive system is pretty self explanatory, I had a postcard for every organ, so I had the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine, the colon, and then the rectum. I also had to do some of the helpers such as, the pancreas, the liver, and the gall bladder. That project took most of my time. Also, I have a small confession to make, I am a HUGE procrastinator! So I might of crammed in my whole fecal transplant project in one night(hopefully Shane is not reading this). But, I did get it done. If you do not like to talk about bodily functions or things that have to do with excretion, you may want to stop here, but if not, just keep going!
Fecal Transplants! Fecal transplants is a cure for a bacteria call C. difficile colitis. C. difficile colitis is a bacteria that attacks the colon. If you look up images of an infected colon(which I don’t recommend) you will see disgusting sores all over the walls. Now, you may or may not have known this, but anything that ends with “itis” means inflammation, so it makes sense that C. difficile colitis would cause inflammation in the colon. Anyways, back to the main topic, this terrible bacteria causes fever, diarrhea, and pain in the gut. Also, it can be fatal. It also makes sense that diarrhea is involved, because if your gut isn’t working right, that probably means it isn’t doing it’s job right either. When this bad bacteria takes over, your colon is almost bare of good bacterias. So, a solution? POOP, or antibiotics, but poop is more interesting. Surprisingly, poop contains lots of good bacteria, so this transplant restores the “good stuff” in your gut. So, first a donor must be found. I’m not sure how difficult it is to find a donor, but I can’t imagine that it is that hard, considering they are just collecting something that is already being excreted. The donor’s blood and poop is carefully screened for parasites, disorders, and diseases. Next, once they have the feces, they blend it with saline. Once blended, it is strained. After the process of liquifying it, it is sometimes frozen before use. When needed the liquified feces is thawed and transplanted through a nasogastric tube or a colonoscope. An interesting fact about fecal transplants though is that they are not yet approved by the FDA, but they are on their way! Normally, unless the the case of colitis is really bad, it is treated with antibiotics, considering that it is a bacteria. Now the only piece of advice that I have for all of you is this, remember to wash your hands after the bathroom, because that is how this bacteria is passed. Lot’s of people can carry this disease but they never get sick, but of course, this is not the same for everyone. People who are infected can spread the bacteria through food and other things if they do not wash their hands after the bathroom. I hope you enjoyed learning about this wonderfully gross yet cool cure for C. difficile colitis!( I couldn’t find any good images that were too disgusting to look at)
3 Questions
- Wouldn’t freezing the fecal mixture kill the bacteria in it?
- Why are the feces blended with saline?
- Why do we excrete healthy bacteria that we need in our gut?
