Making you squirm
Researchers launch a study on worm therapy for MS
If you thought the idea of slathering mud on open wounds and skin infections was gross, wait ’til you get a load of this one
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin Hospital are conducting a study using worms to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. And it gets even better (or worse, depending on how you look at it): Before the worms can have any beneficial effect, the study participants need to get them into their systems somehow. In order to that, they’ll have to drink a “shot” of worm eggs, that will then hatch inside their bodies.
If you can get past the general idea (let alone the actual worm-egg shot itself), this therapy does appear to have some evidence behind it. A previous study from Argentina found that people who were already infected with the type of worm the University of Wisconsin researchers are using in their trial (known as helminths) have fewer MS symptoms than worm-free patients.
The theory behind this line of treatment is to shift the immune response in MS patients away from one that relies on inflammation, which, when it runs amok, damages the myelin sheaths that protect the nerves and causes the hallmark symptoms of the disease. Instead, the researchers hope that the worms will trigger a different type of immune response — one that specifically targets invading organisms. As this particular immune response works to kill off the worms, it “takes over” the immune system and makes it less inflammatory overall, which would alleviate some of the damage, and resulting effects, caused to the protective myelin sheaths.
But the research is still in the early stages, and the researchers concede that it may not have the effect they’re hoping for. Even if it does, they’ve got a long road ahead of them convincing people that swallowing worm eggs should be their treatment of choice.
Luckily, there are other, less unsavory options. One of the most effective MS treatments Dr. Wright has seen is a simple histamine skin patch called Procarin. He covered this therapy in the October 1999 issue of Nutrition & Healing. That issue is available (in text version only) on the website. Subscribers can download it for free by visiting www.wrightnewsletter.com and logging on with the username and password listed on page 8 of your most recent issue.
Source:
“Testing a worm egg cocktail to treat MS,” ABC News (www.abcnews.com), 3/17/08
