Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Want to Lose Your Gut? Bacteria Check

A story in the New York Times reports on studies that rearranging bacteria in the gut may be responsible for some of the weight loss experienced after gastric bypass surgery.  Doctors hope that treatment options that isolate these bacteria may be used in the future to help some obese patients without need for surgery.

To test this hypothesis, a study performed surgery on groups of mice.  Interesting reading, though this article contains two words that I had hoped to never hear in sequence: "fecal transplant".


5 comments:

Bob said...

There was a related article a few months back on using fecal transplant to cure c. dificile infections:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/17/science/la-sci-fecal-transplant-20130117

J.R.Shirley said...

That's disgusting, Bob. Just add salt, eh? I really, really don't want an enema through my nose.

Bob said...

Better than the alternative, John. C. Dificile doesn't respond to most antibiotics anymore. My mother died of pneumonia resulting from MRSA, another antibiotic-resistant bacterium. Both MRSA and c. dificile are rampant in hospitals and nursing homes.

The wizards of the pharmaceutical industry could probably come up with a less invasive way to introduce "beneficial" feces into the GI tract. I'm thinking along the lines of drying it/placing into capsules to swallow. From that point it's just a matter of giving it an official name and televising it:

Do you or a love one suffer from clostridium dificile infection? If so, Crapilex might be the answer...

Home on the Range said...

"drying it an placing it in capsulees to swallow? I think that's called a Boca Burger.

J.R.Shirley said...

That's horrible, Brigid.


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