Would You Infest Yourself with Hookworms so You Could Eat Bread Again?

[The Anti-Targ]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11346326

Hookworms to treat coeliacs

Coeliac disease is a problem where the body's immune system attacks fairly innocuous proteins from wheat. This attack also damages the intestine and causes serious problems for sufferers, giving them few options but to avoid gluten altogether.

The immune system attack in coeliac disease is similar to what happens in IBD - ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease - and all three problems are often put together under the general heading of autoimmune diseases.

Recently, the hookworm has been shown to release substances that calm the immune system, allowing the parasite to live peacefully in your gut. This calming effect may be helpful for IBD and recently it has been investigated against coelic disease.

Researchers at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital tested the idea that the immune-calming effect of the hookworm could help people with coeliac disease during a small but well-designed clinical trial. While a previous study had not found an improvement in gluten tolerance, the new study was careful to slowly increase the levels of gluten.

As the researchers point out, the level of increased tolerance achieved was not enough to allow their patients to eat a whole meal of gluten, but it was enough that accidental (or incidental) ingestion of gluten would not cause problems.

OK so not quite able to eat a whole slice of bread, but perhaps avoid getting severe cramps from eating a few bread crumbs.

Hopefully a pill containing the immune calming substance is on the cards, rather than people being faced with the prospect of deliberate parasitism as a coeliacs management tool.

It's an interesting twist on the idea that being exposed to greeblies has a positive effect on immune function. This is more like having a calming effect rather than a strengthening or directing the system to target actual immunological threats. Perhaps the reason we had less allergies in the past was because high rates of parasitism suppressed the immune system, rather than made sure the immune system was focussed on fight actual problems not twiddling its thumbs looking for benign antigens to fight.

[Kalbear]

There's been some fairly positive studies on introducing more gut fauna to a person with ibs using stool samples. Almost the same level of ick.