Take 2,500 eggs of parasitic worms to treat the disease

Global scientists are enthusiastically researching parasite therapy when people in developed countries increasingly rush to eat helminths to treat immune disorders in the body, through News on New Zealand said.

Helminths changed my life

Michael American found himself infected with Crohn's disease (dangerous gastrointestinal disease) in 1996 when he was 17 years old. Three surgeries with lots of drugs that only helped reduce symptoms for a while, made him affected by terrible side effects.

This hookworm is an attractive dish on the menu of people with Crohn's disease,
Severe ulcers and severe allergies. (Photo: Medgadget).

After reading the results of scientific research, Michael decided to try therapy for helminths. Of course he was not too interested in swallowing parasitic worms, but the readings had convinced him to accept the risk.

At the age of 25, Michael ordered a batch of swine helminthes eggs from a German company called Ovamed (trafficking or breeding of helminths is illegal in the US).Michael took 2,500 eggs of worms every two weeks for three consecutive months . Then his symptoms disappeared. In April 2010, he transplanted 35 hookworm larvae through his skin and said his Crohn's disease had been completely cured since then.

' You will immediately assert that swallowing worms must be the action of a monster. However, right now our skin also has billions of bacteria wiggling , 'Michael told the Newscastist .

Before drinking the worm himself, Michael's intestines were severely damaged and bleeding. When Dr. Moshe Rubin of New York Hospital examined Michael's bowel earlier this year, he found ' Michael's small intestine was almost completely normal '. ' This is not a controlled experiment, but this observation-based result suggests that helminth therapy saved him, ' Rubin said.

The surprising result of Michael is making public opinion buzz about a " monstrous " treatment.

Sally, a US citizen, is hoping to cure her severe allergies by eating the stool of a generous friend of hers. The " medicine " ingredient seems very simple: water, sugar, salt and some of your 'human excrement' for. Pouring 500 helminth eggs onto the microscope glass and licking it clean, Sally hopes the helminths will grow in her intestine and adjust her immune system, helping to treat her severe allergies. .

Science joins

The basis of helminth therapy is that helminths can control the host's overactive immune system when the person is suffering from disorders such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and allergies. serious.

P'ng Loke of the University of New York, USA said he previously knew therapy with helminths, but ' although I consider it a reasonable hypothesis, I have never been brave enough to proceed. practice that kind of experiment . '

However, this scientist changed completely when he met a man who kept helminths in his abdomen. In 2004, a 29-year-old man with ulcerative colitis flew from the US to Thailand to swallow 500 whipworm eggs. A few years later, almost completely cured, this man asked Mr. Loke, who was working at the University of California, San Francisco, the United States to look at his intestines and see if the worms had any effect. .

Loke's intestinal endoscopy results show that wherever the worms live, the typical ulcers and bleeding of ulcers are significantly reduced or completely gone.

Mr. Loke published the results as a case study in the American Translational Medicine magazine in the United States. The scientist was so impressed with the result that he himself is currently looking for support funds for clinical trials to study the process of helminths that suppress the immune system.

Before Mr. Loke, many scientists have conducted research on this therapy very early. One of the earliest enthusiasm researchers was Joel Weinstock of Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA, who studied the therapeutic potential of helminths in the early 2000s.

In 2005, Mr. Weinstock published one of the few clinical trials for 52 volunteers with ulcerative colitis. These 52 people drank 2,500 eggs of swine helminths or a placebo every two weeks for three consecutive months. 45% of those who drank pig whisk eggs improved their disease, compared with 17% of those taking placebo.

In another case, Dr. John Croese of Townsville Institute in Queensland, Australia, published the results of hookworm injections for 9 patients with Crohn's disease. After 11 months, 5 people recovered.

Most prominent today in the US and Denmark, scientists are testing helminths to treat multiple sclerosis.

' Science now has enough data to ensure further research into the potential for treatment ,' said Thomas Nutman of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland.

However, 'the reason for having few clinical studies is not because of skepticism about efficiency. It is because scientists will face many risks when conducting experiments to treat helminths with volunteers '.

Helminths can cause serious harm to the human body . Peter Hotez of Goerge Washington University in Washington DC stressed that helminth transplantation is a major problem in developing countries and can cause severe digestive diseases, anemia and malnutrition. .

' It's nothing like the old days when medicine made patients get malaria to treat syphilis, ' he said. ' This therapy cannot be allowed in modern medicine '.

It is unclear how corrupt it is, so many enthusiastic Americans trust Michael's story, chose to accept the risk and swallow the hairworm eggs or tie gauze tapes containing worms into the skin to cultivate worms.

It is explained that if this transplant is problematic, there are effective worms that can kill parasitic worms like albendazole.