Eat Poop? Why Docs Say It Can Be a Good Idea

(CBS) Organ transplants? How 20th Century. These days, one of the hottest trends in "transplant" medicine is "fecal flora reconstitution," a.k.a. poop transplants.

Hard to believe, but doctors say transplanted feces can be life-saving in cases of potentially deadly infections caused by a nasty bacterium called Clostridium difficile. A new study shows that even a single fecal transplant can provide the "good" bacteria patients need to recover from severe diarrhea and other symptoms of "C. diff," a germ that spreads rapidly in hospitals and nursing homes.

In a recent study, published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 18 out of 19 patients infected with C. diff responded to a single poop transplant.

That's good news, especially since C. diff is often hard to treat with antibiotics - and increasingly common. Data from 2008 suggest that there may be as many as  7,000 C. diff infections in U.S. hospitals on any given day, and up to 300 deaths, according to Time magazine.

The unusual treatment has a definite "eww" factor. First, the donor feces is stripped of larger particles and then blended with saline. The resulting mixture is transferred to the recipient via an enema - or even through a tube inserted into the mouth or nose.

Gross, maybe. But likely worth it if C. diff has you cornered.

Ultimately, doctors hope to develop a sort of artificial feces that could provide the beneficial bacteria patients need. But we're not there yet. As one proponent of poop transplants told Reuters, "We'd like to get away from poo, but it works the best."