Academics from the Universities of the West of England and Bristol have found that faeces from healthy people and those with infectious diarrhoea differ significantly in their chemical composition and could be used to diagnose quickly diseases such as Clostridium difficile (C. Diff.).
It is hoped the discovery of these chemical profiles will lead to the development of an electronic device capable of rapid diagnosis at the bedside, saving both time and money.
The study has just been published online in The FASEB Journal. It is the result of a collaboration between Dr Chris Probert, Consultant and Reader in Gastroenterology at Bristol University and Professor Norman Ratcliffe at the University of the West of England.