Hygiene Hypothesis - Helminthic Therapy

Helminthic Therapy

The use of parasitic worms (also known as helminths) to treat the types of disease described by the hygiene hypothesis is being studied in the UK, USA and Australia.

Because of the promise shown by this research, two versions of Helminthic therapy, using Trichuris suis ova or Necator americanus larvae, have become available.

Helminthic therapy is the treatment of autoimmune diseases and immune disorders by means of deliberate infestation with a helminth or with the ova of a helminth. Helminthic therapy is currently being studied as a promising treatment for several (non-viral) autoimmune diseases including Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, asthma, and ulcerative colitis. Autoimmune liver disease has also been demonstrated to be modulated by active helminth infections.

In addition to the treatment of immune disorders the anti-inflammatory effects of helminth infection are prompting interest and research into diseases that involve inflammation but that are not currently considered to include autoimmunity or immune dysregulation as a causative factor. Heart disease and arteriosclerosis both have similar epidemiological profiles as autoimmune diseases and both involve inflammation. Nor can their increase be solely attributed to environmental factors. Recent research has focused on the eradication of helminths to explain this discrepancy.

As a result of the hygiene hypothesis helminthic therapy emerged from the extensive research into why the incidence of immunological disorders and autoimmune diseases is relatively low in less developed countries, while there has been a significant and sustained increase in immunological disorders and autoimmune diseases in the industrialized countries. If helminthic therapy and other therapies using other types of infectious organisms, such as protozoa, to treat disease are proven successful and safe the hygiene hypothesis has potentially large implications for the practice of medicine in the future.