Poo to Mouth

Fecal transplants just got easier to swallow. The procedure, in which the bacteria from a healthy gut are implanted into an unhealthy one, has gotten a lot of buzz over the past year. But the treatment generally requires a colonoscopy — a procedure that's both uncomfortable and expensive. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers report that the same success rate can be reached by processing the healthy excrement into capsules and administering the pills by mouth. That's right, people, there will soon be pills that are literally full of crap. The process starts the same way as usual: exceptionally healthy young people — those that pass all requirements for blood donation, as well as being screened for other health factors — provide stool samples, which are then blended with medical-grade saline and filtered. But instead of that uniform liquid being pumped into a patient, it's concentrated into a single capsule. Another layer of capsule goes on top, and the whole thing is kept frozen. A single treatment requires a gulp-worthy 30 pills — 15 on the first day and 15 on the second. But don't knock it: in a trial of 20 patients, it brought normal bowel health and function to 18 — which is the same rate of success seen in more invasive methods. Plus it's cheaper: the entire course is estimated to cost US$500 — one sixth the price of either a colonoscopy or a standard course of antibiotics. This begs the question: why didn't anybody think of shoving that crap down our throats (pun intended) sooner?