Pig Parasite Worm Might Help Fight Disease

Some bugs are good for our health, and a pig parasite called the whipworm appears to be one of them.
Wall Street Journal: Whipworm eggs have been found in human studies to reduce symptoms in a host of diseases that affect the immune system. Researchers at several universities have shown promising results in small numbers of patients with multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Biotechnology companies are conducting large clinical trials of the treatment. Other studies targeting rheumatoid arthritis, autism and some allergies are expected to begin this year.

…Based on this hygiene hypothesis, researchers at the University of Iowa wanted to find a safe parasite—one that wasn’t known to cause infection or illness in humans—for therapeutic purposes. This type of treatment is known as helminthic treatment, or more specifically TSO, from the Latin name for whipworm eggs: Trichuris Suis Ova.

“It looks like the helminth [the parasite] rebalances the immune system,” says Bobby Sandage, chief executive of Burlington, Mass.-based Coronado Biosciences, which is finishing up an early-stage clinical trial of whipworm to treat Crohn’s disease. A Phase 2 trial is planned for this year.

In many autoimmune diseases, immune cells known as T1 cell cytokines proliferate and fight against the body’s cells, the way they do when the body detects foreign invaders.
The introduction of the whipworm appears to spur the body to produce more of a different type of helpful immune cell—T2 helper cytokines—as a defense against the worms. This separate immune response appears to help counter the inflammatory response from diseases, say researchers.

Please contiune reading at Wall Street Journal