Clostridium difficile also known as C-Diff is an extremely dangerous superbug which takes over the intestines and destroys the bowel of those it infects. It also has the very real potential to cause kidney failure and death.
Caused by the overuse of antibiotics and extremely resistant to even the most powerful drugs, this superbug kills over 300 people per day in the US alone.
With antibiotics useless against the rogue strain of this bacterium, Australian doctors have found a surprisingly simple and amazingly effective cure:
Bacteriotherapy or fecal transplants from the guts of healthy donors directly into the colons of infected patients.
The results are nothing short of remarkable.
Termed “the ultimate probiotic treatment”, a single infusion of a healthy donor’s poop into the infected colon resulted in a cure rate of no less than 97% according to Professor Thomas Borody from the Center for Digestive Diseases in Sydney which so far has conducted over 1500 such transplants.
Robert Silberstein, a 38 year old attorney and father of 3, is one patient quickly cured by this amazing new therapy. Mr. Silberstein had been fighting a clostridium difficile infection involving severe pain and diarrhea for over 6 months with conventional antibiotics to no avail. Faced with either losing his colon or death, Mr. Silberstein was referred to the Center for Digestive Diseases for a fecal transplant.
“I had the procedure done at midday and I woke that night and felt completely normal. I was shocked. I had been so ill for six months and I felt normal. The transplant was amazing. It worked.” said Mr. Silberstein.
Mr. Silberstein’s doctor agreed. “It has cured him,” said Dr. Bernie Hudson, a Royal North Shore Infectious Diseases Specialist.
Dr. Hudson went on to say that he felt that all New South Wales hospitals should become equipped to perform these transplants in order to save more lives.
Hopefully, this wildly successful treatment will quickly make its way to hospitals and become standard of care in the United States given the alarming and rapidly rising cases of clostridium difficile infections.
Avoiding Clostridium Difficile Infections
Avoiding infection with a dangerous superbug such as clostridium difficile obviously involves keeping the gut healthy with beneficial bacteria dominating over any pathogenic strains.
Making and consuming traditionally prepared fermented foods and drinks is an important way to accomplish this goal. To source probiotic cultures for making these healthy foods in your home, please refer to my Resources page.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com
Source: Deadly Superbug Beaten Using Poo Transplants from Healthy People
I believe I first heard of this on the GAPS list. IIRC someone had it done with their wife/husband’s fecal matter. It is amazing, if not somewhat gross…. then again, I used to think enemas were gross until I used one and changed my mind. I wonder if kefir grain implants would work…
I was thinking the exact same thing, Magda. I’ll bet a plain old at home enema with filtered water and BioKult dissolved in the water would do it.
I would love to know if you’ve ever tried this Sarah! What a great idea!
Sorry, meant to say *but then level off in effectiveness”
A lot, if not all of kids with autism struggle with abnormally high levels of C. Diff in their intestinal tracts. Probiotics do not work even at high levels, usually you have to knock down the levels with Flagyl or Vanco and then dose high levels of probiotics to keep it down but one way or another C. Diff finds a way to rear its ugly head. This might be the answer for them. Cultured foods seem to help at first but them level on in effectiveness.
Cultures in foods dont always make it into the gut and colon areas. thats why we should eat them at least once a day.. but better a little everytime we eat… My daughter has to be on antibiotics everyday until she can have a surgery to fix her underdevelopement to her bladder. We try to feed her whatever cultured food I can get into her. and eventhen the dr said the probiotics wont all survive the stoumache.
Good point. I have often wondered why probiotics cannot tolerate high temperatures yet can survive our stomach acid. Explanation anyone?
It’s important to get high quality probiotics. Probiotics that need to be refrigerated is indicative of low quality. One reason I like BioKult is that the strains are hardy and there is a soil based spore strain that easily survives stomach acid.
Have you heard of Garden of Life Primal Defense? It’s an unrefridgerated probiotic that also contains soil based bacteria. (created by the founder of the Maker’s Diet) I’m planning to start the GAPS diet with my family and I’m curious if this probiotic (which I currently take) is as effective as BioKult. Just curious if you have any info on this, thanks!
“Ultimate” Probiotic Treatment Beats Deadly Superbug – basically a poop transplant. WHOA. http://t.co/evOXzPm
Hi Amanda, this is a conventional treatment so it does not appear that these patients are trying any fermented foods etc beforehand .. only antibiotics and other conventional hospital methods for eradicating infection. I don’t know if eating them would be helpful at a complete cure or not given how bad the situation quickly becomes when C-Diff is contracted. It seems perhaps a direct transplant right into the colon is necessary at that point.
Just a little something about prevention… Several yrs. ago I read about a survey of hand washing in hospitals on a very reputable med site (sorry my memory is shot, but it’s where drs. can get credits). A majority of drs. did not wash their hands going patient to patient, the nurses weren’t perfect, but the majority did. Ok, I took some time to find a couple of articles:
excerpt: C. difficile may also occur ubiquitously in the environment in the spore form, surviving for five months on hard surfaces.6 The vegetative or spore form of C. difficile can be transmitted from contaminated surfaces by patients and/or healthcare workers and caregivers via the fecal/oral route. The primary route is from a patient with an active infection to others via healthcare workers hands.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no2/pittet.htm
Is the fecal transplant the last ditch effort? It says antibiotics don’t work, but what about probiotics and all the good fermented/cultured foods they could eat? I mean, are they trying all the good stuff and THEN doing the transplant because things are just SO BAD?
The answer lies in bifidobacterium infantis to keep guts from getting this way in the first place. Also, lacto-fermented (or all fermented type foods), good fats and oils, and going lightly on the “poking” fibers like small seeds (fruit seeds, sesame, flax, milk thistle, etc.,). There are other good probiotics too, but the bifidobacterium infantis is the main one to start with. It comes in combination with other probiotics, so you have to especially look for just the BBI (sometimes called Bifantis). The one I use is for babies and is called Baby Life from the Baby Me Now line produced by Solaray.
Stay away from drugs and you won’t risk C-dif, and you also won’t need drugs to help “get rid” of C-dif. Makes sense to me. Good natural antibiotics include Olive Leaf, Golden Seal, Garlic and many others. I use the Olive Leaf in liquid form, sublingually. I try to use all “supplements” in liquid form or else I make them into a liquid by adding them to water and drinking it down. I do not tolerate pills, tablets and capsules very well – they used to come out looking just like they went in! I was getting nothing good out of them, so I went entirely liquid. Some of my concoctions aren’t very tasty, but it DOES work if you have a stressed digestive system or colon problems such as diarrhea or constipation.
This reminds me of Urine Therapy.