06-01-2024, 02:57 PM
Fascinating piece on hookworms & how they can help humans...who knew.
If there turns out to be some merit in this then it could perhaps mean an end to Crohns disease, allergies & various other things.
People have apparently being sharing hookworms in order to rid themselves of various things such as asthma & multiple sclerosis.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/5061...od-for-you
"Ten minutes after gauze is applied to his arm, Christian Williams feels an unusual pinching sensation.
"I didn't feel them again for another month or so," Williams says.
The "them" he's referring to are hookworms trapped under the gauze, and the mild rash he is left with marks the beginning of an epic journey for the 30 larvae the Malaghan Institute has infected him with.
A touch of awe creeps into Malaghan Institute gastroenterologist Tom Mules's voice when he talks about a human hookworm's life cycle. The parasite is an "amazing organism," he says, built to only infect humans and with a "perfectly shaped mouth" to latch onto human anatomy.
To get into the body, "they've got these heat sensors that can find their way to your bloodstream." The pinching sensation Williams felt is a result of the hookworms detecting blood and swiftly burrowing under his skin.
From the bloodstream they wend their way to the lungs and crawl up the windpipe. "Without even knowing it, you swallow them, and they end up going down through your stomach," Mules says.
Passing through one of the harshest environments in the body, the tiny worms survive stomach acid to reach the small intestine. This is their home for the rest of their lives, which lasts at least four years. Here they latch onto and graze on villi - the small finger-like structures that line the intestine - and "cruise around looking for other hookworms of different sex that they can mate with".
Hookworms can lay thousands of eggs a day, but these are expelled in faeces and don't hatch inside your body. In places with plumbing and where shoes are commonly worn these expelled eggs are doomed, but in countries with poor sanitation people walking barefoot can pick up more larvae. This is how the parasite has earned its bad rap: when people are continually picking up more larvae they can end up hosting hookworm populations in the thousands, potentially causing anaemia and malnutrition.
So why is Williams voluntarily playing host to them?
It's because plumbing and shoes may have created a different set of health issues. There's a "hygiene hypothesis" that when countries improve sanitation and children grow up in more sterile environments, they also become more susceptible to allergies. The "old friends hypothesis" goes further, suggesting that erasing parasites like hookworms, which humans evolved with, leads to overly sensitive immune systems.
One school of thought is that there might be an infection sweet-spot, where just the right number of hookworms hanging out in your small intestine, cruising for sex and sucking your blood, might be an infection with benefits for both host and hookworms. Hit this balance and the relationship might be more symbiotic than parasitic.
It's a theory with a community of DIY advocates who share hookworm larvae and stories. Many say that after infecting themselves, their health improves dramatically and conditions plaguing them for years reduce or vanish.
The study Williams joined looks at how a small number of hookworms affect healthy people. His sister has Crohn's disease - just one of the conditions from allergies to asthma, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease and diabetes that hookworms might help with - so Williams is happy to nurture a colony of hookworms to move research along. Plus, he's a little curious.
There's a range of ideas about how hookworms help humans. One theory is that hookworms release compounds which dampen the body's immune response just enough for the worms to stay alive, but not enough to make their meal ticket defenceless. An analogy might be installing pet-friendly motion sensors on a house alarm: the alarm can still detect a burglar, but a pint-sized pooch can happily scamper about without setting off the siren.
This could mean small things, like dust mites, pollen, or pet hair, might not trigger an allergic response."
If there turns out to be some merit in this then it could perhaps mean an end to Crohns disease, allergies & various other things.
People have apparently being sharing hookworms in order to rid themselves of various things such as asthma & multiple sclerosis.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/5061...od-for-you
"Ten minutes after gauze is applied to his arm, Christian Williams feels an unusual pinching sensation.
"I didn't feel them again for another month or so," Williams says.
The "them" he's referring to are hookworms trapped under the gauze, and the mild rash he is left with marks the beginning of an epic journey for the 30 larvae the Malaghan Institute has infected him with.
A touch of awe creeps into Malaghan Institute gastroenterologist Tom Mules's voice when he talks about a human hookworm's life cycle. The parasite is an "amazing organism," he says, built to only infect humans and with a "perfectly shaped mouth" to latch onto human anatomy.
To get into the body, "they've got these heat sensors that can find their way to your bloodstream." The pinching sensation Williams felt is a result of the hookworms detecting blood and swiftly burrowing under his skin.
From the bloodstream they wend their way to the lungs and crawl up the windpipe. "Without even knowing it, you swallow them, and they end up going down through your stomach," Mules says.
Passing through one of the harshest environments in the body, the tiny worms survive stomach acid to reach the small intestine. This is their home for the rest of their lives, which lasts at least four years. Here they latch onto and graze on villi - the small finger-like structures that line the intestine - and "cruise around looking for other hookworms of different sex that they can mate with".
Hookworms can lay thousands of eggs a day, but these are expelled in faeces and don't hatch inside your body. In places with plumbing and where shoes are commonly worn these expelled eggs are doomed, but in countries with poor sanitation people walking barefoot can pick up more larvae. This is how the parasite has earned its bad rap: when people are continually picking up more larvae they can end up hosting hookworm populations in the thousands, potentially causing anaemia and malnutrition.
So why is Williams voluntarily playing host to them?
It's because plumbing and shoes may have created a different set of health issues. There's a "hygiene hypothesis" that when countries improve sanitation and children grow up in more sterile environments, they also become more susceptible to allergies. The "old friends hypothesis" goes further, suggesting that erasing parasites like hookworms, which humans evolved with, leads to overly sensitive immune systems.
One school of thought is that there might be an infection sweet-spot, where just the right number of hookworms hanging out in your small intestine, cruising for sex and sucking your blood, might be an infection with benefits for both host and hookworms. Hit this balance and the relationship might be more symbiotic than parasitic.
It's a theory with a community of DIY advocates who share hookworm larvae and stories. Many say that after infecting themselves, their health improves dramatically and conditions plaguing them for years reduce or vanish.
The study Williams joined looks at how a small number of hookworms affect healthy people. His sister has Crohn's disease - just one of the conditions from allergies to asthma, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease and diabetes that hookworms might help with - so Williams is happy to nurture a colony of hookworms to move research along. Plus, he's a little curious.
There's a range of ideas about how hookworms help humans. One theory is that hookworms release compounds which dampen the body's immune response just enough for the worms to stay alive, but not enough to make their meal ticket defenceless. An analogy might be installing pet-friendly motion sensors on a house alarm: the alarm can still detect a burglar, but a pint-sized pooch can happily scamper about without setting off the siren.
This could mean small things, like dust mites, pollen, or pet hair, might not trigger an allergic response."
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)
