A load of crap in Gartnavel

This came to me via Facebook from Wally Courie:

Poop Pill’s Surprise Failure Shows That the Microbiome is Still a Mystery

The original faecal transplant work was done in Glasgow and got written up here:

Faecal transplant for recurrent Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoea: a UK case series.

Many years ago, probably around 2006 when the above paper was being written/published, I attended a presentation at a probiotics meeting in central London by a medic from Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow. Might have been by MacConnachie himself. He was quite deadpan, described their very simple procedure for obtaining, filtering and administering the faecal transplant by NG tube. You can read the abstract of the paper to get some idea of the success rate of the procedure. Hint; very high.

What really stuck in my memory was his comment was that, as they removed the NG tube, the patient was cured. Many of these these folks hadn't left the house, often never left the loo, for years before referral. Their next bowel movement was going to be normal.

With a success rate as high as documented there has never been a double blind placebo controlled trial. I rather like that.

So I can imagine him watching the development (as I did) of the multiple probiotic capsule which was (or wasn't!) going to cure C. difficile gut-rot without all of the "ick-factor" of the trip to Gartnavel. Then quietly going in to work to cure some more people, assisted by a pooh sample.

Peter