While we had a short ley article dealing with the use of helminths as a treatment for IBD, I thought it would be interesting to investigate their use further. Although usually the ingestion of worms would seem counterintuitive to treating disease, the helminth Trichuis suis has been found to be effective in relieving the symptoms of both Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
Unraveling the mechanism of disease for IBD has been difficult, however many studies have come to show the various biological systems which manifest these diseases. It has been found that CD is mostly a Th1 dominated immune response compared to UC. The idea behind the use of helminths is to steer the immune system from a Th1 to a Th2 mediated response. By doing this, it is possible to down regulate the Th1 response which is causing damage to the intestinal walls.
The study Trichuris suis Seems to Be Safe and Possibly Effective in the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease found the use of helminths to be beneficial in both CD and UC patients. In the study, after one treatment participants were found to have gone in to remission or had drastically lowered their CDAI or SCCAI scores. The study did show that with only one treatment, many experienced a flare up after 12 weeks, however if the treatment is repeated every 3 weeks the beneficial effects may be more lasting. One patient managed to remain in remission for over a year when treated regularly.
It seems that helminths may end up being an effective treatment for IBD, and some suggest that it may even provide a method for immunization. The link between sanitation and IBD prevalance may have to do with helminth contamination in water. Using this link, it may be possible to treat children with helminths in order to "teach" the body an appropriate immune response in order to prevent the autoimmune issues that are found in IBD.
Sources:
Trichuris suis Seems to Be Safe and Possibly Effective in the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Robert W. Summers, M.D., David E. Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., Khurram Qadir, M.D., Joseph F. Urban, Jr., Ph.D., Robin Thompson, M.H.A., and Joel V. Weinstock, M.D.
Department of Internal Medicine, James A. Clifton Center for Digestive Diseases, University of Iowa Health Care, Iowa City, Iowa; and The Immunology & Disease Resistance Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY Vol. 98, No. 9, 2003
© 2003 by Am. Coll. of Gastroenterology ISSN 0002-9270/03/$30.00
Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/S0002-9270(03)00623-3
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Inflammablog 2 is the place to post short reviews about selected subjects in immunology, inflammation, and infection, and have them commented on (and possibly even improved) by friends and colleagues. It is managed by John Cohen in Denver, and Zoë Cohen in Tucson. We invite students in either course to comment on the postings by their classmates and by the students in the other course.
We particularly want this to be a place to practice clear, friendly communication to people who have a background in science, but are not experts in this particular area. Sort of the Café Scientifique crowd.
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3 comments:
This was kind of a weird concept to me, to ingest worms for medical reasons, yet I definitely believe in the assumption behind it. I think that if we were to shut children off from as many sources of disease and germs, then their immune system will not be exposed to things and become resistant to these things. It is in childhood where we develop immunity to a lot of the diseases we face. Look at chicken pox, if you get it as a child you will be ok, but if you were never exposed to it or vaccinated for it then you will get a much worse case of it, shingles, as an adult. This is why it is so important to let our children be exposed to these things, within reason of course, while they are young. Though this is coming from a grownup that used to play in the mud and share everything with everyone, including my germs! For the germs, especially with my younger brother!
Can I make a little adjustment to the chicken pox story? Adults with shingles are not getting chicken pox for the first time. Varicella virus is a herpes virus, and thus almost always goes latent; in this case, in the dorsal root ganglia. There, it can get reactivated (cause usually unknown, stress can play a role) and viruses move down the nerve to the skin area supplied (dermatome.) The adult may recall having had chicken pox as a child, or not , as many cases are so mild as to be inapparent. We hope getting varicella vaccine will prevent shingles later.
Thanks, obviously I didn't know this. Again thanks for the info. :)
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