MANILA, Philippines - Now this might sound gross, but in the name of discovery, science, and endurance of the human race, can human excretion be your weapon for survival? Can you eat your own poop? To give you a more pressing question, would you eat another person’s poop?
Urine has been known as a lifesaver. We have all heard stories of people who survived days without food by drinking their own urine. But the question is, can human feces be a lifesaver?
Robert Orenstein, D.O, of Mayo Clinic Arizona has claimed that fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT or fecal transplantation) has proved highly effective at eradicating clostridium difficile infection, which is a nasty condition of the gut that causes crippling nausea, the runs, and cramps on par with the menstrual variety. Fecal transplantation can be performed via nasogastric tube, nasojejunal tube, upper tract endoscopy, colonoscopy, and retention enema.
Now many have said that FMT is not quite practical and quite laborious to perform. Consequently, researchers in Canada have managed to make it as painless as popping a pill (pill of poop). According to Thomas Louie, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, 30 out of 31 patients were successfully cured of recurring Clostridium difficile infection with such pills.
The pills are made for each individual patient. To make them, the feces (donated by a family member) are processed until only bacteria remains, which are then encapsulated inside a triple-layer of gelatin in order to safely make it through your digestive system into your intestines before dissolving.
According to Dr. Ravi Kamepalli, MD, an infectious diseases physician and author of a study on fecal transplantation tolerance, fecal transplantation has a 98 percent success rate, and the vast majority of patients report being overall satisfied with the ease and effectiveness of the procedure.
There is much more to discover about how human feces can help human race survival. Some physicians claim to have great success treating ulcerative colitis and celiac disease. Moreover, it has been looked at for obesity, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis because some of the signals for the gut are pro-inflammatory for RA.
As quoted from Dr. Orenstein, "With molecular biology and the sequencing of these species, this can only get bigger. It's like the beginning of the space program."
This video about the success of poop pill is taken from YouTube: