New Therapeutical Approaches of MS: Parasites Lend Helping Hand (Part 2)

by Wiebke Heiss / MEDICA.de15/11/2009

Part 2: Limits of the Worm Therapy

„This therapy will most probably never be a cure“, Constantinescu says while considering patient's hopes. According to him it is very unlikely that the damage MS had already caused could be reversed. „However, it is already a great success when the therapy triggers immune regulating cells and that way helps in alleviating symptoms.“ Immunologist and neurologists will therefore take a close look at the possible benefits as well as the side effetcs in next year's study since within this "natural" approach theoretically also lies the potential to do harm: Intestinal parasites could make patients more prone to other diseases because the worms interfere with the complicated immune system and influences its intertwined actions. First study results are not to be expected before 2013.

Before hatching: Whipworm egg
© Wikipedia

Totally without any side effects works a whipworm therapy developed in Germany according to Detlev Goj. „We developed a therapy against Crohn's disease and colitis ulcerosa“, the director of the company Ovamed says. The treatemt's linchpin are not fully grown parasites but its eggs that are swallowed by the patient. The whipworm is not able to survive outside its natural host, the pig, longer than two weeks. However, just in case a larva may actually hatch the tiny worm would be digested quickly by the human body, says Goj.

The fundamental idea grew because the former medic and colleagues observed that inflammatory intestinal diseases like Crohn's disease afflicted only people from developed countries and not from developing ones. „That is why we started concentrating on environmental factors while searching for the reasons.“ Two facts slipped into the researchers' centre of attention: one being in the South of France, the other in the East of Germany. There, a certain delicacy fills fridges and is enjoyed during lunch: A cheese that is basically filled with mites. „These two regions are relatively white patches on maps concerned with inflammatory intestinal diseases“, Goj explains.

Researchers are careful not to raise too many hopes

Such observations strengthen a theory called the hygiene hypothesis: Due to extreme cleanliness in modern western lifestyle the immune system may overreact since it is not really challenged anymore. Instead of fighting germs and intruders as the body's defences have done over thousands of years it now keeps waiting for new enemies and therefore uses its own weapons sometimes against the own body - the theoretical basis for allergies and autoimmune diseases. Neurologists at the University of Wisonsin would like to tests the whipworm eggs. A small previous study with five MS patients gives reason to do more testing. „We are at the moment just waiting for authorisation of a larger study revolving around the egg cocktail“, John Fleming says, the responsible researcher. At the same time he adds: „I am not able to give any substantial comments on the therapy before the authorities have given their okay and the examination is really taking place.“

- Part 1: Parasites Lend Helping Hand
- Part 2: Limits of the Worm Therapy