Hookworms highlighted again: hitches and hopefulness this time
Do you remember a previous newsletter article about a crazy British physician with asthma? He was able to put his asthma into total remission by ingesting hookworms. The worms end up living in the GI tract and for some strange reason, they switch the body from the allergy-promoting TH-2 mode to TH-1, which eliminated allergy (See Promising New Asthma Drug this issue.)
Now his crazy Australian brethren are doing research on celiac disease and hookworms. The Australian scientists found that by inducing an experimental hookworm infestation in patients with celiac disease, and at the same time giving them small amounts of gluten, they were able to induce a state of gluten tolerance.
As well as the hookworm treatments work, the downside is that the worms cause the patients to become anemic and, thus, are not a viable long-term treatment. The researchers, however, hope these experiments will lead to a safe method of switching TH-2 to TH-1. One never knows where research can lead.