Dr. Mark Davis: When waste becomes the cure

They say one’s trash is another’s trea­sure.

Dr. Mark Davis has built a med­ical career on this con­cept.

To many, poop means very lit­tle. It’s just waste, to be flushed away and rarely spo­ken of.

But for some peo­ple, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem that severe­ly impacts their qual­i­ty of life. And the only solu­tion is more poop.

Let me explain.

Davis, a Port­land-based natur­o­path­ic physi­cian, has ded­i­cat­ed his career to help­ing peo­ple with stom­ach con­di­tions — espe­cial­ly those who have tried every­thing, to no avail.

At TEDxSalem on Oct. 3, Davis will speak about the work he is doing to improve the lives of those who have stub­born inflam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease and infec­tious col­i­tis.

Davis comes from a fam­i­ly of sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and he nat­u­ral­ly formed an inter­est in a career in the field, as well.

But unlike con­ven­tion­al med­i­cine, which he says is more focused on fix­ing bro­ken bones and patch­ing up bleed­ing parts, Davis was inter­est­ed in a more holis­tic type of med­i­cine.

When he dis­cov­ered natur­opa­thy, he knew it was right up his alley.

He got into gas­troin­testi­nal health because of the influ­ence of his men­tor, Dr. Steven Sand­berg-Lewis, who is a gut health expert, Davis said.

Davis found that while many peo­ple suf­fer­ing from bow­el dis­eases found relief through diet, nutri­ents and herbs, there were some peo­ple for whom noth­ing seemed to work.

He did some dig­ging into sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, and he found an answer that has helped many peo­ple: fecal trans­plan­ta­tion. In oth­er words, he takes donat­ed fecal mat­ter from healthy peo­ple to trans­plant it in sick people’s intestines through an ene­ma.

Today, he runs his own donor bank at his prac­tice and con­tin­ues to help peo­ple who have tried every­thing to relieve their bow­el dis­ease symp­toms with no suc­cess.

You would have to attend TEDxSalem to learn more about fecal trans­plan­ta­tion, what Davis has done to make the process more — well, appe­tiz­ing — and the bar­ri­ers the gov­ern­ment has placed on peo­ple who would ben­e­fit from this treat­ment.

Tick­ets are avail­able at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.