Question: what is the worst type of bacteria you have found in someones gut?:)

Ciarán O'Brien answered on 14 Nov 2014:

That would be a nasty little blighters called Clostridium difficile. When people’s gots get sick, a C. difficile infection can quickly take over. the bacteria doesn’t damage you directly, but it produces chemicals that are very very toxic, and a Clostridium infection will make you feel utterly dreadful in a few hours, and if you don’t see a doctor, it can kill you in a day or two.

The worst thing about C. difficile is that it’s not really affected by most antibiotics, and the ones that do work against it also kill off a lot of friendly bacteria. It’s a terrible bacteria 🙁

Thankfully, scientists have found some interesting, if disgusting solutions, which are being tested out right now. the one I like best is called faecal microbial transplant. What that basically means is doctors replace someone’s poop with healthy poop from someone else! the healthy poop won’t have C. difficile in it, and it’ll have a load of friendly bacteria that the patient will have lost from the infection and the antibiotics used to treat it, so it sort of pushes out the C. difficile and recolonises the patient’s gut with good bacteria that leave C. difficile no room in the gut to live. It sounds gross, but it seems to be very effective!