April 8th, 2010 by JenniferKearneyStrouse in Better Health Network, News
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An article in the New York Times this week looks at a raft of new public health initiatives passed by Congress that are aimed at boosting disease prevention. Examples include requiring restaurants with at least 20 locations to include nutrition information on their menus and mandating employers with at least 50 employees to allow new mothers to express breast milk at work. In addition, Medicaid will now cover smoking cessation counseling for pregnant women and Medicare beneficiaries will be eligible for an annual physical. The initiatives are expected to eventually save money by decreasing the country’s chronic disease burden. (New York Times)
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently did a study applying physicians’ ethical codes to the conduct of the fictional doctors on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “House, M.D.” Perhaps to no one’s surprise, TV doctors are behaving very badly. As the abstract of the study states, both shows feature “egregious deviations from the norms of professionalism and contain exemplary depictions of professionalism to a much lesser degree.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Journal of Medical Ethics)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
November 25th, 2008 by drval in Audio, Expert Interviews
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Photo Credit: authenticmaya.com
The blogosphere has been buzzing lately about the idea of “fecal transplants,” probably because this treatment (first studied in the 80’s) was recently mentioned on Grey’s Anatomy. Proponents of the therapy (which involves the introduction of donor stool into a patient via enema or naso-gastric tube) say that it can rejuvenate intestinal flora and cure c. diff colitis, and various inflammatory bowel disorders. I had my doubts about these claims and decided to interview gastroenterologist Dr. Brian Fennerty to get to the bottom (sorry abou the bad pun) of this issue.
Dr. Fennerty is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, where he also serves as Section Chief of Gastroenterology.
Listen to the podcast here:
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Dr. Val: What exactly is a “fecal transplant?”
Dr. Fennerty: First, by way of background, you need to understand that the GI tract is populated with thousands of varieties of “good” bacteria that are essential for our health. If we didn’t have bacteria in our colon and small intestine, we would die. Fecal transplantation is the repopulation of a person’s gut bacteria (flora) with fecal matter from somebody else. Some argue that this helps to treat certain diseases.
Dr. Val: How is this procedure performed?
Dr. Fennerty: As it was originally described, fecal transplantation involved removing the undigested food particles from the stool sample of a “healthy” person, and then spinning it so that a pellet (of hundreds of thousands of species and quasi-species of bacteria) remains. The pellet is then introduced to the patient through a nasogastric tube into the small intestine, or the pellet can be resuspended in liquid and introduced into the rectum via an enema. The idea is that the bacteria will colonize the patient’s colon and squeeze out the bad bacteria that are in there.
Dr. Val: What are fecal transplants purported to do?
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