Eating human feces may be good for some folks?

[theking]

Freeze-dried feces pills called 'crapsules' to be taken by patients in clinical trial From brain-altering pollution levels to possible risks of low-dose aspirin, here are the health

Keeping up with all the latest in health news can be a crapshoot. Luckily, we’ve got you covered. Here are the most headline-grabbing stories this week from Yahoo News partners.

‘“Crapsules” ... may offer new hope for patients’
A clinical trial funded by the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Research is testing whether pills made from the freeze-dried poop of healthy people could help those with advanced liver disease, Sky News reported.

Individuals with cirrhosis — a condition involving severe scarring and damage of the liver — have higher levels of “bad” gut bacteria that make them more susceptible to infections. Researchers are hoping that pills containing feces with “good” bacteria of healthy individuals will improve the gut health of patients with cirrhosis and reduce the need for antibiotics.

“The ‘crapsules,’ which have none of the taste or smell as the name suggests, may offer new hope for patients with cirrhosis who are out of treatment options,” Debbie Shawcross, a King’s College London professor and chief investigator of the trial, said.

About 300 patients are expected to take part in the trial, with participants randomly assigned either a freeze-dried stool capsule or a placebo tablet every three months for two years.

A study published this week found that exposure to levels of some pollutants considered safe from a regulatory perspective could contribute to changes in a child’s brain function over time, The Hill reported.

Higher concentrations of ozone were related to increased connections in the brain’s cortex — which is responsible for processes such as thought, memory, consciousness and emotion — but to fewer connections between the cortex and other regions of the brain such as the amygdala, which is associated with emotional processing, and the hippocampus, which plays a role in long-term memory.

Researchers said they hope regulators will consider these findings when setting air quality standards in the future.