[xoxoxoBruce]

Worm therapy... shudder

A month later, Turk saw an ad on the news seeking multiple sclerosis patients to try out an unusual new treatment at the University of Wisconsin, in his hometown of Madison. Patients were being asked to infect themselves with live pig whipworm eggs to see if the parasites alleviated any of their symptoms or slowed the spread of telltale brain and spine lesions.

Six years later, the group published the result of two preliminary trials in humans. In one, involving 54 ulcerative colitis patients, 43% of those given pig whipworm eggs improved, compared with only 17% who received placebos.
In a second trial 29 patients with Crohn’s disease took whipworm eggs every three weeks. By the end of 24 weeks, 79% had reduced disease activity and 72% had gone into remission.

Patients must re-infect themselves every few weeks but do not risk a chronic infection potentially spiralling out of control, or of accidentally infecting family members. “Pig whipworm is very kosher,” Weinstock says.

Gastroenterologist John Croese, at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, is inoculating 12 coeliac disease patients, who suffer from gluten intolerance, with hookworms. Gluten is slowly introduced into their diets to see if the hookworms will suppress the disease’s inflammatory response.

The theory is, as we've cleaned up our act, you know, sterilized our environment, over the past few hundred years. We've mostly eliminated these parasites, and that changed the zoo in our guts, which led to other problems.