Having a giant parasitic worm living inside you is not very pleasant and quite dangerous. But even worms have their fans. They are sure that the parasites will help them get rid of allergies and other diseases, lose weight and even stop aging, informs Ukr.Media.
Worm merchant
The most famous proponent of helminthotherapy — treatment by infecting him with parasitic worms — is considered to be a Briton named Jasper Lawrence. He claims that worms literally brought him back to life. Now the man is happy to share his personal experience and, for a fee, he undertakes to send live worms anywhere in the world.
Lawrence's history of close acquaintance with parasites began in 2004. At that time, he suffered from severe allergies, asthma and obesity, caused by constant use of prednisone, which, moreover, did not help. The future worm seller described his condition as desperate – he did not have enough strength even to climb stairs or play with his children. His business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and his marriage was falling apart.
It was at this point that his aunt from the UK came to his rescue. She told Lawrence that she had seen a popular science program on TV about an experimental method of treating allergies and asthma with helminths. He immediately caught the idea: he studied scientific articles, talked to doctors he knew, and soon went to Africa – it was easiest to pick up the necessary worms there.
I was very afraid that I would come back with the wrong disease: river blindness, elephantiasis, dengue fever, or something else. On the other hand, I had seen how my life had deteriorated over the past five years because of asthma. Medicine, it turned out, could offer me nothing but palliative drugs. So I felt that I had no choice.
After returning from Africa, Lawrence did not immediately find out what had happened to his trick. To check for parasites, he took the biomaterial to the laboratory, but nothing suspicious was found there. However, after a few months, Lawrence suddenly realized that his allergies had stopped tormenting him. He could drive in a car with the windows down in the midst of flowering plants and still feel great.
To make sure the allergy was gone, Lawrence went to his ex-wife's house and stroked her cat. Previously, after contact with fur, his cat would become red and swollen, but this time nothing happened.
Lawrence decided that he had to tell everyone about his rescue and help other people in a similar situation to recover. So he started breeding parasites himself.
At first, Lawrence came up with a more marketing-friendly name for them: symbionts. Then he created a “farm” to grow them. In small containers, he recreated the conditions of a tropical jungle, then collected and cleaned the grown larvae, glued them to skin patches, and sold them online.
Buying a blood-sucking intestinal parasite from a stranger without a higher education is not the best choice. But people come to us when they are desperate.
Lawrence was not shy about talking about his unusual business, although he was not a doctor and had nothing to do with medicine at all. After one of these interviews, the US authorities became interested in him. The worm dealer decided not to wait for official charges and fled to the UK, where he is still hiding. However, he did not abandon “treating” people.
Miracle worm
Justin Lawrence doesn't attribute healing properties to all parasites. He went to Africa, for example, in search of a particular species — necator americanus, or New World hookworm. This is a low-pathogenic roundworm less than a centimeter long. It lives in the small intestine for about five to seven years and is unable to reproduce inside the body.
Infection occurs through the skin – for example, when a person steps barefoot on larvae that have hatched from eggs that were in the feces of an infected person. Once on the skin, the larvae damage it, reach the blood vessels and are carried throughout the body with the bloodstream. This is how they first reach the bronchi and finally to the final point of their route – the intestines.
In countries with well-developed sanitation and plenty of shoes, it is almost impossible to catch this parasite. However, it is very common in places with poor hygiene and a lack of water.
In the 1980s, British biochemist David Pritchard, working in Papua New Guinea, noticed that infected people almost never experienced symptoms of allergies or asthma, and did not suffer from autoimmune diseases. To confirm the hypothesis that small numbers of parasites were beneficial, the scientist deliberately infected himself with hookworms and later defended his thesis on the topic.
By the end of the decade, other researchers had begun to develop such hypotheses. Epidemiologist David Strachan formulated the hygiene theory, which was that interaction with certain microorganisms in early childhood protected against allergies. The lack of such contact, he hypothesized, led to poor immunological tolerance and the emergence of autoimmune diseases.
Allergies, asthma, type 1 diabetes, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, multiple sclerosis, and about a hundred other diseases can be the result of inappropriate autoimmune responses.
Doctors still haven't figured out how autoimmune diseases arise and why they are affecting more and more people. Most often, this is associated with climate change, environmental pollution and the influence of carcinogens. But there are other assumptions. For example, supporters of the “old friends theory” believe that humans have always been accompanied by microbes and parasitic helminths on the path of evolution. Having suddenly lost them due to poor hygiene, the immune system began to malfunction and attack healthy cells in various organs.
This theory suggests that by reintroducing parasites into the body, it is possible to prevent, and possibly even halt, the development of certain diseases. However, this has not yet been proven and requires further research.
The effects of helminths are currently being studied in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, autism, allergies, and asthma. According to one version, deliberate infection can even slow down aging or, more precisely, stop the inflammatory processes that develop with age throughout the body.
According to a gastroenterologist and hepatologist at the Israeli clinic, the goal of most such studies is not to treat parasites per se. First of all, scientists want to understand the mechanism of autoimmune diseases.
It will not be possible to treat autoimmune diseases with helminths. However, it is possible to study immunogenicity – the effect of helminths on our immunity. Thanks to a better understanding of the biochemical and molecular processes of this interaction, scientists are getting closer to solving the mystery of autoimmune diseases.
Parasites for beauty
The idea of benefiting from parasitic organisms is not new. Back in the 19th century, women bought pills containing tapeworm eggs to lose weight without dieting. It was believed that the parasite living inside would give the lady the sickly thinness that was fashionable at the time and make her skin pale.
Most of the time, such advertising was a hoax, and buyers paid for dummies. The fact is that in an unsuitable environment, eggs and larvae die quickly. In fact, infection with worms more often occurs when eating undercooked meat from an infected animal.
In the 20th century, the myth of easy weight loss thanks to parasites did not disappear, but, on the contrary, became more popular and even more believable. The reason for the emergence of a new legend was the rapid transformation of the opera singer Maria Callas. Newspapers wrote that the celebrity lost weight thanks to worms, which she deliberately ate.
Although the story is fictional, there is some truth to it – Callas was indeed obsessed with the idea of slimness and actually once contracted worms. However, this did not happen on purpose, as the press claimed, but because she loved tartare – a dish of raw beef, which could contain larvae. Moreover, researchers of the singer's biography found that she lost weight not during the illness, but soon after recovery.
With the advent of the Internet, diet pills with worms experienced a new wave of popularity. Ads for sale began to appear regularly on the Internet. And although marketplaces try to remove such offers, from time to time information about miracle pills still pops up on forums and some websites.
Just like 150 years ago, most of their sellers are ordinary scammers. They sell useless pills with unknown composition and incomprehensible effect, but still without parasites. In fact, there can be dangerous consequences if the promises turn out to be true and the buyer actually becomes infected.
Slimming pills with worm eggs are really illegal. They are not even medicines – they are not licensed. This is due to the direct danger to the person who dared to try them. Firstly, it is not at all clear what exactly was put there, which worm. Because of this, it is impossible to predict the effect, and it is extremely difficult to choose an adequate treatment.
By the way, the presence of parasites does not guarantee a slim figure, it is only one of the possible symptoms of infection, but not at all mandatory. On the other hand, worm infestation, especially long-term, creates a deficiency of vitamins and protein, increases the risk of developing cancer and generalized allergic diseases. In addition, some parasites increase the likelihood of developing acute surgical diseases – intestinal perforation or mechanical jaundice and intestinal obstruction.
Helminthophile community
Despite the unpleasant consequences of infection, there are more and more people willing to have a live worm inside them. And with the demand, there are also those who are ready to satisfy it. For example, clinics in Mexico freely provide such services – however, with the caveat that the patient himself is responsible for the consequences of the treatment.
There are also those who grow worms themselves. It is easy to find detailed instructions on the Internet for breeding and using parasites. There are active communities where enthusiasts share advice, support each other and demonstrate the results of “therapy”. Helminth fans believe that a little more – and humanity will understand: worms in the intestines are no worse than live bacteria from yogurt commercials.
Official medicine holds a different opinion. Doctors still advise protecting your body from the invasion of parasitic organisms – wash your hands and food more often, and eat only well-cooked meat purchased from trusted sellers. Unlike worms, it definitely won't do any harm.
Джерело: ukr.media
