Since the fecal transplant, however, he hasn’t been admitted to the hospital and seems to be healing better, his mother said.

"This is not a study that says humans will have a different body weight" if they get a fecal transplant, he said.

To enroll in a fecal transplant study, visit clinicaltrials.gov.

There is preliminary evidence that the fecal transplant may also be delivered in the form of a pill.

He asked for and received permission to perform the hospital's first colonoscopic fecal transplant.

This new pill method is a less yucky way to do "fecal transplants."

Some scientists wonder if fecal transplants from the lean to the fat might treat obesity, too.

And we're not just talking about fecal transplants.

To get the gut back into balance, fecal transplants had been tried and, anecdotally at least, they worked.

Viewed for many years as a fringe medical treatment, fecal transplants are generating new interest among physicians and patients.

Fecal transplants increasingly have been used in adults with success rates as high as 90 percent or more, according to recent reviews.

The fecal transplant material is then prepared and administered in a clinical environment to ensure that precautions are taken.

So some doctors in the Netherlands decided to do a clinical trial, comparing a fecal transplant to standard care with vancomycin.

The idea behind fecal transplant from someone with a healthy gut is to restore bacterial balance to the patient's intestines.

In recent years, some people have received fecal transplants, in which stool from a healthy person is placed into the patient’s intestine.

Among the volunteers in the non-transplant groups who had a relapse of C. diff, 18 were later given a fecal transplant.

It wasn't until 1958 that the first scientific paper on the use of fecal transplants in humans appeared in the United States.

Scientists have known for years that fecal transplants in general are highly effective against C. diff infections, which can be extremely difficult to cure.

Some countries have had considerable success with fecal transplants, notably Australia, which said it had almost a 90 percent success rate.

Recent studies have shown that fecal transplants - giving infected people stool from a healthy donor - can restore that balance.

The new study, conducted in the Netherlands, is the first randomized clinical trial to demonstrate that fecal transplants can work without causing serious adverse effects.

This is the first study to take a group of people with recurring C. diff infections and compare fecal transplants' effectiveness against other treatments.

As icky as it might sound, fecal transplants have already become an accepted therapy for some types of intestinal infections.

Kaitlin Hunter says she is feeling much better after a fecal transplant "cured" her bacterial infection in her colon.

Stool transplants have been proposed as one alternative.

Fecal bacteriotherapy, also known as a stool transplant, is approximately 85% to 90% effective in those for whom antibiotics have not worked.

Stool transplants are about 90% effective in those with severe cases of Clostridium difficile colonization, in whom antibiotics have not worked.

Stool transplants may be considered for patients who are having difficulty recovering from prolonged antibiotic treatment, as for recurrent Clostridium difficile infections.

Stool transplants have been proposed as one alternative (see Reuters story of November 30, 2012: reut.rs/QRaAIy).

"It's unbelievably effective," said Dr. Neil Stollman, who was not involved in this research, but who has reported similar success using colonoscopy to deliver a stool transplant.

A fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) also known as a stool transplant is the process of transplantation of fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a recipient.

In humans, fecal transplants (or stool transplant) is the process of transplantation of fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a recipient who is suffering from a certain disease, such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Stollman, who practices at Northern California Gastroenterology Consultants, said only about 10 percent of patients have the nasty C. diff infections that might make them good candidates for the stool transplant, but that number is on the rise.

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