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http://www.ajc.com)
Clostridium difficile is a bacterium often located in people's guts. When people take antibiotics, it kills many of the healthy bacteria in their digestive tracts. This can cause
C. difficile to take over the gut, leading to a diarrhea-causing infection that kills 14,000 Americans a year.
Now, researchers from Canada have developed a new therapy to treat
C. difficile infections: pills made from fecal matter. The pills are triple-layered capsules that contain healthy microbes extracted from the fecal matter of patients' family members.
The researchers tested their "poop pills" on 27 patients who had to take up to 34 of the pills in 15 minutes, and they found the experimental therapy to have a 100% success rate.
As quoted by NBC, Dr. Thomas Louie, one of the researchers involved, said, "There's no smell. There's no taste. ...It looks like peanut butter."
