Clostridium difficile •

A new government report has showed that over 450,000 Americans get infected each year with potentially deadly bacteria, called Clostridium difficile, which may be lurking in the office of your doctors.

According to the experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost all cases of infection from this deadly bug are triggered by the overuse of antibiotics.

Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, is typically found in hospitals. But the researchers of the current study said that it may occur at the doctors’ clinic as they found that a substantial number of people participating in the study contracted the bacterial infection by not visiting hospitals, but going to their doctor’s clinic.

The common disease caused by the bacteria is diarrhea, which is potentially deadly in nature. According to the CDC, the cases of infections from Clostridium difficile are on the rise as its new report has shown approximately half a million people in the United States getting infected across various locations in one year, with 15,000 deaths directly linked to the bacteria.

The presence of C. diff was found in six out of seven outpatient clinics, including on examining tables and patients’ chairs, in Ohio that were examined during a study conducted in 2013.

Concerned over the findings, the CDC researchers are going to conduct a new study at the national level to find out the exact scenario of C. diff in doctors’ offices.

Dr. Cliff McDonald, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC, said, “This is really an important issue. We need to understand better how people are getting Clostridium difficile.”

For the study, the CDC researchers’ team collected an actual idea of all reported cases of C. diff in 2011. It was found that 15,461 cases were reported during the year across 10 regions in the United States. Nearly two-thirds were linked to some sort of healthcare, and just 24 percent of people got sick while staying in the hospital.

Even though the revelations by the study are startling, the good news is that C. difficile cases are declining. According to CDC, there has been a 10 percent decline in the cases of C. difficile infections linked to the hospitals from 2011 to 2013.

Meanwhile, the Health and Human Services Department has announced that it will begin penalizing hospitals that are not making efforts to lower the onset of such cases in 2017.

The CDC study was published on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A woman suffering from a recurrent Clostridium difficile or C. difficile was recently successfully treated for infection with a stool transplant, but after the surgery she has gained considerable amount weight.

Stool transplant, known as fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) in technical term, is considered by the doctors as effective procedure for the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infections that can even turn fatal in some cases.

The C. difficile infection is considered to be a common reason for diarrhea related to antibiotic. With the overgrowth of the bacteria, dangerous toxins also begun to release that in turns attack the intestines’ lining, causing Clostridium difficile colitis.

An unnamed woman underwent a transplant of stool in 2011 for treating C. difficile infection. Before the procedure, her BMI was 26 and weighed 136 pounds. But she reported gaining an extra weight of around 34 pounds within 16 months of the surgery.

The stool was donated to a woman, whose identity is not disclosed, by her 16-year-old daughter, who was overweight at the time of donation.

Dr. Colleen Kelly, a gastroenterologist at the Warren Alpert Medical School of the Brown University, said that weight gain of about 5 to 10 pounds is normal for patients after an FMT procedure.

However, the weight gain of more than 30 pounds is worrisome.

According to the researchers, the woman weighed 177 pounds and her BMI was 34.5 within three years of the transplant. A person is considered obese when the BMI is 30 or more.

Kelly, who also prepared the case report, said, “We’re asking whether there was something in the fecal transplant, whether some of those ‘good’ bacteria we transferred may have had an impact on her metabolism in a negative way.”

According to Kelly, the woman was never had an overweight issue prior to the FMT surgery. It is the stool transplant, Kelly said, which may have caused her to gain weight among several other factors.

Kelly also suggested that the use of antibiotic for treating another infection, aging, stress due to the illness and other factors has likely resulted in the gain on weight.

But, the link between weight gain and fecal or stool transplant cannot be rejected outrightly as it is supported in animal studies.

Health experts say the people suffering from the overweight problem as not allowed from making any type of donation, including organ, blood, semen or stool donations. But, the recent case has posed some of the vital questions over accepting donations that whether the weight factor should be considered before indulging in such an exchange.

The case report was detailed in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

CDC finds fatal bacteria C. difficile’s link to doctors’ clinics

Clostridium difficile surgery establishes stool transplant-obesity link

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