Its interesting how nowadays there have been a number of clinical trials investigating whether or not intentionally infecting people with worms, usually hookworms, may have beneficial effects on various disease states. They work, or so we believe, by modulating the immune system, hopefully in a way that may change the course of certain human diseases like multiple sclerosis, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease such as ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease, coeliac disease, rheumatoid arthritis and type I diabetes mellitus. Hookworms tend to fairly benign worms, when they infect people. The most serious problems they usually cause are things like nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and general gastrointestinal upset. The worm modulates the hosts immune system as a defence mechanism against the hosts immune system. Theres a hypothesis out of there, Im sure amongst yas it wont be very popular as its based on evolution. It states that us humans evolved in an environment loaded with microbes and parasites and that our body evolved such that these infections were considered normal to us. Hence its theorised that when we try to get rid of these infections with medications we put out the natural balance of our bodies, leading to the autoimmune diseases (diseases in which the bodys immune system turns on it, attacking healthy tissue; the diseases I mentioned earlier are all thought to be autoimmune in nature) we see all around us. There is some evidentiary support for this hypothesis too, which is that in countries where infections/infestations are highly prevalent (such as developing countries) we see significantly higher rates of autoimmune conditions. Regrettably, most trials to date in which people were intentionally infected with hookworms have been negative. Reference list (free to everyone, a little technical though but definitely a nice read): 1. Khan AR, Fallon PG. Helminth therapies: Translating the unknown unknowns to known knowns. International Journal for Parasitology [Internet]. 2013 Mar [cited 2014 Jan 30];43(3–4):293–9. Available from: sciencedirect/science/article/pii/S0020751912003189/pdfft?md5=30e9cf170872b3730c4c1535a4c73f45&pid=1-s2.0-S0020751912003189-main.pdf Ronald Slyderink
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 07:40:50 +0000
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