Feces Therapy

Against allopathy Alternative medicine

Clinically unproven

Lemonade diet Kombucha Fasting Quantum healing Biofeedback CEASE therapy

Woo-meisters

QuantumMAN Samuel Hahnemann (português) Encyclopedia of American Loons Gary Null Salvador Borrego QAnon v - t - e

Feces therapy is a legitimate medical treatment, a potential experimental medical treatment, and a woo alternative medicine. The differences are in the methods and claimed benefits.

Fecal transplants[edit]

Fecal transplants (or fecal microbiota transplants, FMT) are used in medicine primarily in an attempt to treat problems in the gut microbiome with transplants from people with healthier microbiomes. The first fecal transplant reported in a scientific journal was in 1958, but research was minimal until 2012.^[1][2]

Treatments[edit]

Treatments have addressed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), colitis, and Clostridium difficile infection. In such cases, a plausible rationale for such treatment exists, and some treatments have had success. Transplants have often used suppositories, but oral pills of extracted bacteria seem to provide the safest method.^[3][4][5] In other words, researchers started with a bottoms-up approach and have now moved towards a top-down approach.

Efficacy and safety[edit]

Fecal transplants have a 90% cure rate for treating C. difficile, far more effective than antibiotics.^[6][7] In a small study of 55 patients with both IBS and inflammatory bowel disease, only 52% were cured or had decreased symptoms after treatment with FMT.^[2] In a smaller study of 13 patients with IBS only, 70% reported improvement of symptoms after treatment with FMT.^[2]

FMT is not without risk. "Autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren syndrome, idiopathic thrombocyto-penic purpura, and peripheral neuropathy) developed in 4 of the 77 patients" in one long-term study.^[2] Even if you think you have your shit together and you already have everything you need to do an FMT, do not try this at home.^[1]

Probiotics[edit]

Raquel Rubio et al. won the 2014 Ig Nobel Prize in Nutrition for their study on infant fecal bacteria used as probiotics in sausages.^[8][9] This is one kind of sausage that you absolutely do not want to see being made. Unless...

Alternative medicine[edit]

The difference between the alternative medicine treatment and the medicine treatment is that:

• Alternative medicine fecal samples are generally not screened for pathogens.
• Alternative medicine claims tend toward a wide variety of implausible applications.

China[edit]

Human and animal feces are in the Chinese Materia Medica, and have a long history in traditional Chinese medicine. "In the 16^th century, Li Shizhen detailed a variety of fecal preparations called 'yellow soup' to be given for diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and constipation."^[10][11] It can even be found for sale online as Excremento Hominis in a preparation called ren zhong huang (人中黄) or (licorice with human feces).^[12] The laundry list of indications for ren zhong huang includes "erysipelas, sores, polydipsia with high fever, typhoid with heat disease, macula due to heat-toxin."^[13]

Ren zhong huang (as jen chung huang) appears in the Chinese Materia Medica as treatment for:^[14]

Plain human feces are given:^[14]

Animal feces are also used in a variety of treatments, including that from the pig, dog, sheep, mule, camel, lion, tiger, tapir, deer, wolf, rabbit, otter, and rat.^[14]

India[edit]

In 2015, Shankarbhai Vegad, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and a Member of Parliament, claimed that cow urine and cow dung can cure cancer.^[15] He said,

Korea[edit]

In Korea, a "wine" has traditionally been made from human feces called ttongsul (똥술). Ttongsul is still available in Korea, but it is not as popular as it once was.^[16][17][18] Thankfully.

Spain[edit]

In Spain, two biology students, Fernando Cervera and Mariano Collantes, claimed to have invented their own pseudomedicine in 2010,^[19] called fecomagnetismo, as a part of one social experiment.^[20] The pseudomedicine was supposed to use human fecal samples with magnets, and diluted by homeopathic procedures. The experiment ended three years later, after they appeared on important webpages, events, and promotional publications about pseudomedicines. They appeared on national TV in 2017, as a part of a critical show about how pseudomedicines are created.^[21][22]

To cure homosexuality[edit]

Feces has been used in reparative therapy. The gay male client bottles his feces, and when he experiences desires for sodomy, he opens it up and takes a whiff. The aim is to "remind (gay men) where (they) stick their penis" and that "homosexual relations are not pleasurable."^[23]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• OpenBiome provides screened fecal microbiota preparations to the medical community for FMT. Donors are paid for samples and can win prizes for the biggest or most donations in a month.

References[edit]