What Are Poop Transplants and How Do They Work?
Microbes are tiny creatures that live in and on our bodies. Many of them, especially those in the gut, help to keep us healthy. Sometimes, when we eat spoiled food or take antibiotics, we wipe out many of these good microbes. Usually, our good microbes recover from these disturbances, but sometimes harmful microbes can take their place and cause disease. Clostridioides difficile is a harmful microbe that causes severe diarrhea. Usually, antibiotics can kill C. difficile and return the gut to a healthy state, but in some cases, this microbe can come back again and again. Some people end up dying from these recurrent, antibiotic-resistant C. difficile infections. Recently, scientists have found that recurrent C. difficile can be cured by transplanting poop from a healthy person into a sick person. This process is called fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and it saves thousands of lives in the U.S. each year.