I'm a bit late in posting the 23rd's interesting fact. I did give the fact to Nick yesterday face to face though.

Today's interesting fact has to do with faecal transplants.

Faecal transplants have been performed since the 1950's, on patients with infected colons with unstoppable diarrhoea who have failed to respond to conventional treatments. At this time, it is a sort of last resort, but it may become more common place after a new set of medical trials are finished later next year.

There are an estimated 25,000 different type of bacteria, fungi and viruses that normally live in the large colon. This vast colony of micro-organisms for the most part live in a symbiotic relationship with us, increasing the nutrients available for us to absorb from our food. These creatures also work with each other, supplying compounds and nutrients that others cannot synthesise.

When the mixture of types of micro-organisms are disturbed, such as from antibiotics, poor diet or disease, harmful bacteria and viruses can take hold and cause us problems. It has been suggested that the appendix harbours a collection of good bacteria that gets released when this happens, but if the balance is too far out of whack, the colon colony cannot recover.

C. dificile is one such bacteria, and cause death.

Faecal transplants, from individuals with healthy bowel colonies, have been shown to correct this type of problem, within 48 hours of administration. One medical clinic has done over 1500 faecal transplants, all of the patients recovered from their debilitating conditions.