Jump to content
This site uses cookies. Continued use is acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. More Info... ×
  • Welcome to Celiac.com!

    You have found your celiac tribe! Join us and ask questions in our forum, share your story, and connect with others.




  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A1):



    Celiac.com Sponsor (A1-M):


  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Help Celiac.com:
    eNewsletter
    Donate
  • Jefferson Adams
    Jefferson Adams

    Are Intestinal Worms the Future of Autoimmune Disease Treatment?

    Reviewed and edited by a celiac disease expert.

    Long ignored and dismissed as unscientific and crude, are intestinal worms destined to be the future of autoimmune disease treatments?

    Are Intestinal Worms the Future of Autoimmune Disease Treatment? - Image: CC--Robert Ashley
    Caption: Image: CC--Robert Ashley

    Celiac.com 09/19/2017 - Hookworms. Intestinal parasites. They sound gross. The thought of having one's gut infected with a parasitic worm generally makes people's skin crawl. Indeed, intestinal worms, like hookworm, have a bad reputation among health experts, and have been the subject of fierce public health campaigns seeking their eradication. However, researchers have also documented the gut healing abilities of parasites like hookworm.

    In fact, part of how hookworms seem to work in nature is to promote an optimal gut environment in which they can thrive. In nature, the guts of people infected with hookworm are generally healthy. Could hookworms and other intestinal parasites prove key to treating and possibly eliminating diseases like celiac, and asthma?

    Celiac.com Sponsor (A12):
    A number of clinicians and researchers feel that if they can just get the right strain of hookworm, at the right levels, they can basically eradicate celiac disease, and possibly asthma and other inflammatory diseases.

    When hookworms are introduced into the gut of people with celiac disease in the right amount, and kept at therapeutic levels, patients see their celiac symptoms disappear and their guts return to a healthy, normal condition. In fact, hookworms do not reproduce once inside the human gut, so if doctors put , say, 10 hookworms into a gut to treat celiac disease, there will be 10 there later, not more. In nature, the way humans build up dangerous levels of hookworm is via unsanitary environmental conditions and repeated exposure to more hookworms. Done clinically, the hookworm would present little or no danger to the human who was hosting it.

    While still very much in the experimental phase, researchers hope to investigate a number of strains to determine the best therapeutic levels for such disease treatments. For that, they will need FDA approval.

    Remember, the fecal transplant was first described in the 1950s, but took decades to catch on as a conventional treatment for gut disorders, such as c-dif bacteria, partly because it was seen as crude and somehow objectionable. But it proved to work. Really well. So much so that it's now a fairly conventional treatment.

    Could the hookworm follow a similar path from crude and weird to cool and effective? Could hookworms be used to cure celiac disease? Only close study will tell us for sure, and that's why the move to get FDA approval is an important one.

    For that, special strains of hookworm must be approved. "One of the big roadblocks is having the parasites that the FDA will allow you to infect people with," says John Hawdon, vice president of the American Society of Parasitologists and a researcher at the George Washington University.

    He and his colleagues are applying for permission to grow hookworm larvae to standards fit for testing in humans, which is not currently permitted in the United States. Hawdon says he anticipates a lengthy application process.

    Stay tuned for news on efforts to develop hookworm as a potential cure to celiac disease, asthma, and more.

    Sources:



    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    There are no comments to display.



    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now

  • Get Celiac.com Updates:
    Help Celiac.com:
    Donate
  • About Me

    Jefferson Adams

    Jefferson Adams is Celiac.com's senior writer and Digital Content Director. He earned his B.A. and M.F.A. at Arizona State University. His articles, essays, poems, stories and book reviews have appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and websites, including North American Project, Antioch Review, Caliban, Mississippi Review, Slate, and more. He is the author of more than 2,500 articles on celiac disease. His university coursework includes studies in science, scientific methodology, biology, anatomy, physiology, medicine, logic, and advanced research. He previously devised health and medical content for Colgate, Dove, Pfizer, Sharecare, Walgreens, and more. Jefferson has spoken about celiac disease to the media, including an appearance on the KQED radio show Forum, and is the editor of numerous books, including "Cereal Killers" by Scott Adams and Ron Hoggan, Ed.D.

    >VIEW ALL ARTICLES BY JEFFERSON ADAMS

     


  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A17):
    Celiac.com Sponsor (A17):





    Celiac.com Sponsors (A17-M):




  • Related Articles

    Jefferson Adams
    Celiac.com 07/25/2016 - Celiac disease is one of the most common immune-mediated diseases. Often, a gluten-free diet does not fully control celiac symptoms and disease activity.
    Even though no new therapies have been approved, a growing effort, coupled with a rapidly expanding knowledge of the regulatory pathway could soon lead to new breakthroughs.
    A team of researchers recently reviewed the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and current treatment paradigm for celiac disease. The researchers were M Wungjiranirun, CP Kelly, and DA Leffler, both of the Division of Gastroenterology at the Celiac Center of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
    They also reviewed the major types of therapies being proposed for celiac treatment, and expounded broadly upon...


    Jefferson Adams
    Celiac.com 11/30/2016 - Trials using hookworm as a possible treatment for celiac disease are already underway in Australia, but they latest hookworm news indicates that they might also be useful for treating asthma.
    The New World hookworm, aka necator americanus, is long and slender as an angel hair noodle. Adults are large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Seen up close, they look more like the sand worms in the movie Dune than anything people are used to seeing here on earth.
    Researchers are reporting that a protein produced by hookworms reduces the symptoms of asthma in mice, and could one day be used to treat asthma in humans, says the journal Science Translational Medicine. These parasites are some of the most maligned creatures in the animal kingdom. They chew into the...


  • Recent Activity

    1. - CatherineWang replied to B1rdL0ver's topic in Related Issues & Disorders
      40

      Dealing with constant nausea and just feeling awful.

    2. - cristiana replied to BunnyBrown's topic in Related Issues & Disorders
      3

      Recently had my esophagus dilated

    3. - cristiana replied to twe0708's topic in Post Diagnosis, Recovery & Treatment of Celiac Disease
      54

      How Long Do Celiac Patients Live?

    4. - Exchange Students replied to Exchange Students's topic in Parents, Friends and Loved Ones of Celiacs
      2

      Exchange Students who are celiac in need of host

    5. - Scott Adams replied to Exchange Students's topic in Parents, Friends and Loved Ones of Celiacs
      2

      Exchange Students who are celiac in need of host


  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A19):



  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      120,154
    • Most Online (within 30 mins)
      7,748

    Ohwowitsgluten
    Newest Member
    Ohwowitsgluten
    Joined

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A20):


  • Forum Statistics

    • Total Topics
      120.2k
    • Total Posts
      1m

  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A22):





  • Celiac.com Sponsor (A21):



  • Popular Now

    • Sunflowers06
      6
    • Momkaren
      10
    • Elizabeth M Blair
      5
    • B1rdL0ver
    • twe0708
      54
  • Popular Articles

    • Scott Adams
    • Scott Adams
    • Scott Adams
    • Scott Adams
    • Scott Adams
  • Upcoming Events

×
×
  • Create New...