{"id":171694,"date":"2025-06-10T01:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T01:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/171694\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T01:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T01:20:10","slug":"doctors-prescribing-poo-pills-for-very-exciting-new-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/171694\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors prescribing ‘poo pills’ for ‘very exciting’ new treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we dreamt of a magic pill that could cure anything, we weren\u2019t thinking of poo pills \u2014 also known as \u201ccrapsules<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these little capsules packed with freeze-dried fecal matter have recently shown promise in treating everything from advanced cancer<\/a> to deadly liver disease<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Some even say fecal transplants<\/a> \u2014 in which the poop of a healthy person is transferred into someone else \u2014 could be the key to crushing it at the gym<\/a> and reversing some signs of aging.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"doctorsResearchers are testing to see if \u201ccrapsules\u201d can uproot antibiotic\u2010resistant bacteria hiding in patients\u2019 guts. Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n

Now, UK researchers are testing whether capsules containing freeze\u2011dried stool from healthy donors can uproot antibiotic\u2010resistant bacteria hiding in patients\u2019 guts.<\/p>\n

Translation? Someone else\u2019s s\u2013t could save you from a superbug. <\/p>\n

In the trial, 41 patients who had recently battled drug\u2011resistant infections were split into two groups.<\/p>\n

One received three sets of these poo pills over three days, while the other was given placebos.<\/p>\n

\"GlovedSuperbugs \u2014 germs that are resistant to antibiotic treatment \u2014 are expected to cause up to 39 million deaths globally by 2050. TopMicrobialStock \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

A month later, those on the real treatment were found to have healthy donor bacteria successfully colonizing their guts \u2014 a sign the pills may have flushed out the bad bugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Dr. Blair Merrick, the lead researcher at Guy\u2019s and St Thomas\u2019 hospitals in London, told The BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real shift from 20 years ago where all bacteria and viruses were assumed to do you harm; to now where we realize they are completely necessary to our overall health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Superbugs \u2014 germs that are resistant to antibiotic treatment \u2014 are expected to cause up to 39 million deaths<\/a> globally by 2050.<\/p>\n

Microbiome researcher Chrysi Sergaki told the BBC that if the poo pills prove to be successful in further studies, fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) could be the new prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could potentially, in the future, replace antibiotics<\/a> with microbiome [therapies],\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the big picture, so there\u2019s a lot of potential.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When we dreamt of a magic pill that could cure anything, we weren\u2019t thinking of poo pills \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[1493,105,67133,4326,3912,30021,2343,28120,71430,16,15,2177],"class_list":{"0":"post-171694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-bacteria","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-infections","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-medicine","13":"tag-poop","14":"tag-research","15":"tag-study-says","16":"tag-superbugs","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-weird-but-true"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114656446369677366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}