Researcher: Worms may help bowel disease

[Guest guest]

Note: At this point, I don't believe they are good for us in any way, shape or

form.

 

Call me sceptical, but if they were really " good' for us, I don't think that it

would be reported in the major news media. Everything else that I see get

traction so easily to become major news in regards to what is good for our

health is almost always " not so good " in reality. Also, all of the things that I

have found are really good for us, almost never gets space in major media.

 

The whipworms might stop the symptoms of IBD, but as we all know, stopping the

symptoms is not the same as clearing the root cause. Stopping the symptoms in

this case might just be using the ability of the whipworms to " put to sleep " the

immune system when it comes to the immune response to parasites already there.

Just like heart disease is not caused by a lack of heart drugs, the cause of IBD

is not due to a lack of whipworms.

 

How does this information that is " good " for us, get into major media so easily

when vitamins, orthomolecular, etc. can't get into the news no matter what? Just

an accident huh?

 

Frank

 

----------------------

 

 

 

There might be a good side to parasites (and microbes) which we are

not considering, in our haste to eliminate anything from the human

body that, to us, seems " foreign " .

 

Maybe those guests are indeed needed for a full and healthy life.

 

Sepp

 

 

Researcher: Worms may help bowel disease

Posted 6/10/2006 1:42 PM ET

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-10-worms_x.htm?csp=34

 

 

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The upside of Linda Mansfield's research

is that it may lead to a new treatment for inflammatory bowel

disease. The downside is that it would involve swallowing worm eggs.

Mansfield is a professor of microbiology at Michigan State University

who specializes in the study of parasites.

 

She's also one of several researchers around the country looking at

the use of threadlike intestinal parasites called whipworms to treat

the disease, which can cause diarrhea, painful cramps and even

intestinal bleeding.

 

" It's extremely debilitating, " Mansfield told the Lansing State

Journal for a story Friday. " People talk about having 256 bouts of

diarrhea a year when they have this disease. It gets to the level

where some of them are not able to work. "

 

Inflammatory bowel disease, the most common forms of which are

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a condition that is

virtually unknown in the developing world. But it is becoming

increasingly common in industrialized countries.

 

Researchers have put forward several explanations for that, among

them diets high in fat and refined foods. But another possible cause,

Mansfield said, is increasing levels of hygiene.

 

Portions of the immune system actually require periodic infections in

order to develop properly. Some exposure to dirt, bacteria and even

worms can be beneficial.

 

" By living in an ultra-clean environment, " Mansfield said, " we're

removing some of the things that helped to educate our immune system. "

 

Mansfield said it's possible that the human immune system developed

in a way that's reliant, to some degree, on the presence of parasitic

worms.

 

She wasn't the first to hit on that idea. A research team at the

University of Iowa already has tried treating human patients with a

whipworm egg and Gatorade cocktail. Their results were promising.

David Elliott was a member of that team.

 

" There are probably individuals in the population who, back when

worms were prevalent, were the healthiest because their immune

systems could fight off all sorts of things, " he said. " When worms

are removed, their immune systems become unbridled, and they move on

to develop disease. "

Mansfield came to the topic from an animal angle.

 

More than a decade ago, she began studying whipworm infections in

pigs, initially trying to develop a vaccine against the parasites.

 

But one of the things she noticed along the way was that whipworm

infections produced a strong anti-inflammatory immune response.

 

When given to patients with inflammatory bowel disease, the worms can

help to counteract the inflammation and " actually reset the immune

system to be in better balance, " Mansfield said.

 

Further, pig whipworms are relatively safe. Most people will expel

them in a matter of weeks and, if that doesn't happen, they can be

eliminated with anti-worm drugs.

 

That's promising, if a little unpleasant, for people like Linda Rockey.

 

The Mason woman has suffered from Crohn's disease for more than 30

years. Having tried most conventional treatments, she said she's

" right at the end of the rope. "

 

If she had no other alternatives, she said, " if they said. 'This is

it. You eat these worms,' I would do it. At some point, you're

willing to try anything. "

 

The whipworm treatment still needs to undergo further testing before

it can be approved by the FDA.

Information from: Lansing State Journal, http://www.lansingstatejournal.com

--

 

 

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