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
Yet another reason for me to eat kimchi with every meal.
The Inuit tribes ate rotting seal meat to top up their gut bacteria. They did this before the onset of winter to strengthen their systems for the harsh times.
I have tried rotted fish.(correct procedure) About 6 small pieces over a 10 day period. It’s the best my body has functioned , in a long time.
I follow the Primal Diet, so it’s in the book.
PS> spot on, Crystal.
When my oldest daughter was about five months, she was not gaining much weight. An ignorant pediatrician convinced me that I was starving my baby because I must not be producing enough breast milk. After pumping and measuring eight ounces at a pumping, I quickly realized my milk supply was more than adequate. I asked the doctors a few questions. Could she be reacting to something in my diet? Could she have a food allergy since I suffered from food allergies as a child and continue to have extreme environmental allergies? Could it be that her spit up is extreme? I was told that breastfed babies don’t really suffer from food allergies and that it was EXTREMELY rare for a baby to react to a food in her mother’s diet. I was told to hold her after her feeding and not let her crawl around. Most likely the spit up was due to her being extremely active and because she was an early crawler.
Fast forward to today and she has a diagnosed dairy allergy and cannot even tolerate raw dairy. My youngest has had an anaphylactic reaction to cashews and has eczema that we cannot find the cause of. Their allergy issues, in addition to my own, lead me down the path to traditional foods. If I would have known then what I know now!
Knowing what I know now, I would never give my baby donor milk that I did not know the nutrition of the donor. Breast milk provides many benefits to a developing immune systems but I now know that it can also contribute to immune system malfunction.
Don’t we all spend a lot of effort, time and money to ensure every food provided for our children is healthy for them? Why wouldn’t I give the same consideration to my baby?
“Ultimate” Probiotic Treatment Beats Deadly Superbug
http://ow.ly/5DUB7
Hopefully in the near future — but the FDA being what it is, that is doubtful — this therapy will be “standard of care” for not only C-Diff infections, but other conditions like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s. I have heard of people going all the way to Australia for this therapy. If it is a choice between losing your colon or a fecal implant that can cure you,who wouldn’t want to make that trip? But why shouldn’t we have access to it here? Why do we have to go so far away for some of these effective therapies?
Good question Jill. Such a simple procedure and 97% effective? That is a slam dunk.
the famous words of Louis Pasture himself..(granted his death bed confession..the germ is nothing the terrian is everything. He was the founder of modern day germ theory and he recanted his lifes work on his deathbed.
Christy, are you going to do it for your daughter? I am seriously thinking about this for my son who struggles with C.Diff.
My daughter’s pediatric GI has mentioned that this is a highly effective and legitimate therapy as well. Although a lot of people tell us that if we just did A, B, or C, everything would be fine, we’re dealing with the human body, which offers innumerable variables. My girl has Crohn’s, not C-dif, but the therapy works in a somewhat similar fashion.
And to think that antibiotics are standard regimen for CAFO livestock which end up in the dairy and meat cases. The supreme irony is that antibiotic application is at the root of many of our illnesses. Perhaps if we learned to cooperate with Nature instead of exploiting it, we would be much healthier.
Ciao, Pavil
A few years ago, I had a health crisis. I was covered in a horrible rash that was almost unbearable. I had even wished I could just scrape my skin off!! After seeing a naturopath, it was discovered that I had DH (a form of celiacs). During my testing it was also revealed that I had c. diff.!! I firmly believed this is what triggered my body to respond to gluten in such a horrific way. I have since been on the path to better health. I don’t know that I will ever even try to eat gluten again, even if I was told that it was safe for me to. It was a frightening thing to discover that a food could wreak such havoc on your body – even when you are buying the whole grain and grinding fresh flour for fresh home baked goods!!!!
We eat mostly meat, veggies, and fruits…..almost nothing processed not a lot of grains. We even are blessed to have raw dairy and my newly adopted son is on the home made formula (raw milk version). BTW we were told that he had acid reflux (he was medicated with 2 different proton pump inhibitors) and a milk allergy – both of which have disappeared since on the nourishing formula instead of the 57% corn syrup solids that the doctors prescribed!!!
In this journey to good health my family and I have not acquired the taste for fermented things. My desire is to slowly add things in. With this in mind, do you think that taking a really good probiotic would be sufficient along with the fermented cod liver oil and butter oil from Green Pastures? I really want to jumpstart our health, especially my daughter who is a picky eater.
Yes, a strong probiotic like BioKult is fine, BUT not all probiotics are very good. I would be very picky which one you choose as most are totally ineffective. BioKult is expensive which is why fermented foods made at home are a better option budget wise.