Eating Poop May Just Save You From This Deadly Bacteria

PBS show Reactions explains how a fecal transplant may be the safest way to fight the C.diff bacteria.
Loukia Papadopoulos

Every year, around half a million people in the United States get sick from the bacterium C. diff. This is often caused by taking antibiotics and trying to take more antibiotics to treat it may actually kill you.

We likely all have some C.diff in our guts that we got from eating food infected with its spores but luckily the good bacteria keep it from getting out of control and causing diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramping, and even death. But what happens when we take antibiotics?

Well, they don't kill the C.diff but they do kill plenty of the good bacteria that keep it in check, allowing it to take over and cause damage. There are specific antibiotics that do target C.diff but they do not always get rid of all of it.

This means you have to keep taking those antibiotics breeding antibiotic resistance. To bypass that, your best option is to introduce some good bacteria in your gut.

How do you do that? Well, this is where the concept of eating poop comes in. We won't give you the details. PBS show Reactions explains it much better than we ever could. We will tell you the video is well worth a watch.

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