Poop Pills

I would take the pills personally. First of all, you don’t have to undergo the procedures that you have to with fecal transplants. Secondly, all you do is take pills. Granted there are like 27 of them, but still I would rather do something as simple as popping some pills than undergoing surgical procedures. Finally, there is a lesser risk factor. With the colonoscopies and throat tube procedures, if they do just the smallest thing wrong, then you could be seriously hurt. Granted that they could put one or two of the wrong bacteria in the capsules, but that is probably easier to reverse.

They make the pills by taking donor stool and taking the bacteria they need out of it. They then pack bacteria into about 24-34 capsules. To extract the bacteria, they process the stool at a lab to remove all the excess food and other bacteria they don’t need. People probably prefer this because of three reasons. The first reason is that it prevents the disease from coming back. The second reason is that it is probably a lot cheaper than the other procedures. The third and final reason is that it is probably a lot more comfortable and appealing to take a few pills than to have something shoved down your throat.

The capsules are designed with the triple layer gel coating to reach the intestines because that is where the bacteria needs to be deposited to reach the colon where it is needed.

One future advancement is trying to freeze the bacteria. The article stated, “Minnesota doctors are testing freezing stool, which doesn't kill the bacteria, so it could be stored and shipped anywhere a patient needed it.”. This would make this system fully take root in our medical facilities if it worked. It would also help with the speed of the procedure because the bacteria could be manufactured somewhere else. People are also trying to find out which bacteria exactly helps the most in the process. This would allow researchers to grow that bacteria instead of having to process stool.