Incidence of Autoimmune Diseases and Parasitic Infestation
While it is recognized that there is probably a genetic disposition in certain individuals for the development of autoimmune diseases, the rate of increase in incidence of autoimmune diseases is not a result of genetic changes in humans, the rise of autoimmune related diseases in the industrialised world occurring in too short a time to be explained in this way. There is evidence that one of the primary reasons for the increase in autoimmune diseases in the industrialized nations is the significant change in environmental factors over the last century. Environmental factors include exposure to certain artificial chemicals from industrial processes, medicines, farming and food preparation. It is posited that the absence of exposure to certain parasites, bacteria and viruses is playing a significant role in the development of autoimmune diseases in the more sanitized Western industrialized nations.
Lack of exposure to naturally occurring pathogens and parasites may result in an increased incidence of autoimmune diseases. This is consistent with the hygiene hypothesis. A complete explanation of how environmental factors play a role in autoimmune diseases has still not been proposed. However epidemiological studies, such as the meta analysis by Leonardi-Bee et al., have helped to establish the link between parasitic infestation and its protective role in autoimmune disease development.
Genetic research on the interleukin genes (IL genes) shows that helminths have been a major selective force on a subset of these human genes. In other words, helminths have shaped the evolution of at least parts of the human immune system, especially the genes responsible for Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and celiac disease — and provides further evidence that it is the absence of parasites, and in particular helminths, that has likely caused a substantial portion of the increase in incidence of diseases of immune dysregulation and inflammation in industrialized countries in the last century.
Read more about this topic: Helminthic Therapy
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—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
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