Hookworms - A "Natural" Multiple Sclerosis Treatment?
Wednesday March 11, 2009
Hookworms, little tiny parasitic worms, are being investigated as a possible treatment for multiple sclerosis. The idea is this: people infected with hookworms experience a suppression of the immune system. That suppression may be enough to slow the rate of relapse or even modify existing symptoms.
What happens in the study, being conducted at the University of Nottingham and funded with 400,000 pounds, is that people with multiple sclerosis will be infected with 25 hookworms through a patch placed on the skin (it is painless). Nine months later those worms are flushed from the people's bodies. The good news is that it is very safe and very cheap.
A prior study showed that people with parasite infections have fewer relapses than the parasite-free. If the study results are good, this would be an incredibly inexpensive way to treat and help people with multiple sclerosis.
I'm wondering what everyone out there thinks about this. Frankly, the idea of parasites in my body hits me with a certain "gross-out" factor, but I'm not real fond of my daily injection either. What about you, would you think about using parasites to treat multiple sclerosis? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
What happens in the study, being conducted at the University of Nottingham and funded with 400,000 pounds, is that people with multiple sclerosis will be infected with 25 hookworms through a patch placed on the skin (it is painless). Nine months later those worms are flushed from the people's bodies. The good news is that it is very safe and very cheap.
A prior study showed that people with parasite infections have fewer relapses than the parasite-free. If the study results are good, this would be an incredibly inexpensive way to treat and help people with multiple sclerosis.
I'm wondering what everyone out there thinks about this. Frankly, the idea of parasites in my body hits me with a certain "gross-out" factor, but I'm not real fond of my daily injection either. What about you, would you think about using parasites to treat multiple sclerosis? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Further reading: Worm Soup? Intestinal Parasites Protect Against Multiple Sclerosis Relapses
Personally, given the alternatives and what MS could potentially do to me, I wouldn’t mind the little critters running around inside of me (provided its safe) if it means me being able to have a better quality of life. It’d get some getting used to the idea, but it can’t be worse than having MS.
Given the side effect profile of many of the drugs PWMS take already, I suspect having hookworms would be rather a benign treatment for most of us. I would be concerned about the employment repercussions, however — how would you like to go to your boss and say “I can’t work with food or around children or people who are immune compromised because I happen to have a therapeutic parasite?” There also might be a social stigma — people are just learning that MS is not contagious. What if people now assume that most people with MS have hookworms? It might raise the stigma of having MS if it became a common treatment.
As a former Public Health Nutritionist, I suspect you’d be surprised at how many people in the USA already harbor parasites. One may catch them from a bathroom doorknob. Everyone needs to wash hands after using the toilet.
As for a ’stigma’ about MS and parasites, I’m still surprised at how many people I meet who don’t even know what MS is.
Do workers at fast food chains get tested for hookworms? Simple proper handwashing will prevent contagion.
Yeah, I sure would take on some harmless parasites if it stopped or reversed my symptoms! I take copaxone every day, which isn’t THAT bad, and thankfully haven’t had any major episodes. We all have some weird buggy/type things living on/in us invisibly – why not something beneficial???
I would take parasites over an injection in a hot minute. I really hope this is offered as a therapy in the near future. I know that they use leeches in medicine why not hookworms.
If it were proven I would definitely do it in a New York instant. I am not too partial to bugs but it cured me I’d be buggy in an instant.
Knowing that fungus/yeast/parasites do horrible things to the body (I’ve done some extensive reading on this), I would never opt for them to be placed in my body. They may help one thing, but who knows what other damage you will incur, not to mention the what you are going to have to go through to get them out, or the possible withdrawal reactions that will happen when they do get out of your system. These answers may not know for years to come!
My first reaction was no way. I do not want bugs running around in my system. Then I thought if they can tell me what all the side effects and possible problems I would face were, I might consider it. This is a more natural way then some of the drugs I take to keep my MS in control.
I would try hookworms if the side effects were fully explained.
Hookworms aren’t really communicable through poor hygiene- they need to mature for a couple of weeks in warm dirt then they enter through the skin – usually the feet. Not at all easy to pass them on.
I have MS Hookworms wouldn’t bother me. They are too small to see and low level infestations have nearly nil symptoms. Way safer than the drugs would ever be.
Hookworm host rather than chemo injections and all the other nasty stuff I subject myself to in the name of “treatment.”
I would be first in line.
The creatures co-evolved with humans, it is why they have this passive “calming” effect on the immune system. While in large numbers they can certainly be harmful.. they are certainly a far less dangerous treatment than many of the medications people with M.S. are going on. Parasites have been a recent topic on Radiolab, a program from WNYC public radio. I suggest the naysayers to listen to this program.
I would be very willing to recieve this treatment! The weekly injections sometimes leave me with a two day headache, and a little hookworm, without harmful affects, wouldn’t be so bad. I would however like to know how long the benifits last,and if the proceedure would have to be repeated???