Medicine is unique in that every radical advance is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. When they tell you that they may be able to repair your liver by implanting one grown in a sheep , you'll be half tempted to say, "Nah, I'm just gonna try to ride this one out."

5 Shoving Human Feces Up Your Nose

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The Insanity:

So, you've got some stomach problems. Maybe you have inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome or chronic constipation -- whatever, there's no need for us to make jokes about "too many enchiladas" here. Gut problems are no laughing matter. Well, until your doctor looks you dead in the eye and in a somber tone says, "I'm afraid that you're going to need a shit transplant. And no, this is not a euphemism."

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"Eat shit and live."

The Science:

How in the hell could that possibly be a real thing? Well, it has to do with bacteria. As much as we think of bacteria as being the stuff that makes us sick (isn't that why people use smelly antibacterial hand lotions all the time?), your body is actually full of the stuff. Especially in the intestines, there are all sorts of "natural human flora" that make normal food digestion possible.

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But, if the bacteria go wrong, then digestion goes wrong. Which means the reverse is true: You can fix a lot of intestinal problems by fixing the bacteria. So for a while, science has known that isolated bacteria from human feces could be used to treat gastrointestinal disorders. But then finally somebody said, "Why not just get somebody's healthy shits and cram it all into the sick person? Then we'd know they have the right bacteria, right?"



And then they went and had a party to celebrate, because scientists are different from us.

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They call it "fecal bacteriotherapy" (also known as a fecal transplant or transfusion), and we know what you're thinking: "So does this mean the donor has to come to the hospital and poop into my butt? Or do they have some kind of hose that shoves the poop into my butt?" It's neither. The human digestive tract runs one-way. If they're going to cram donor turds into you, it has to go in the other end.