Helminthic therapy (incorrectly referred to as worm therapy): the reason for this site
First, a nit. Helminthic therapy (hell min thick) is the correct term for treatment with helminths, not the term worm therapy. The therapeutic organism used are not worms, they are helminths, and if you want to find the good information you will have to use the term scientists use. Helminthic therapy, or sometimes helminth therapy, is the term used in all the published research on the subject. Besides which the research into the epidemiology and human studies will refer to helminths or helminthic. So if, for instance you want to find read the original science about helminthic therapy and your disease you will have to use "helminth + [your disease name here]" to find anything useful.
But because it can be hard to pronounce some people refer to it as worm therapy. It is not, in fact if you find a site or blog entry referring to it as worm therapy they are either displaying their ignorance or have capitulated to the incorrect usage because it is as commonly used as the correct term. Scientists and experts cringe at the term, me amongst them. Worm therapy is not worm therapy, it is helminthic therapy. Nit over.
Because I pioneered the use of helminthic therapy (often incorrectly referred to as worm therapy) I thought those interested in helminthic therapy might be interested in knowing more about the person responsible for taking it out of the research laboratory and making it available to the public.
So this site, when finished, will provide a short biography so that you can understand my background and how I came to be doing this rather strange business, as well as providing links to other sites and businesses I have been involved in over the years.
Since most people's interest in me will be in connection to my business selling worm therapy or helminthic therapy I will concentrate on posting that content first. But in the future I will add a short biographical page, and links to those businesses I have been involved with in the past.
Worm therapy or helminthic therapy
Worm therapy, more correctly helminthic therapy, is a technique for treating the modern diseases that increasingly afflict the populations of developed or developing countries and which are rare or unknown in populations living in the kinds of conitions in which humans evolved.
Disease like allergies and asthma, Crohn's disease and multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, and Sjögren's Syndrome, are almost unknown in the developing world, largely it is now believed by the hundreds of scientists working in Europe, the United States, Japan and Australia, on this subject because helminth infection, usually with multiple helminths, is still so common. Helminths, to prevent their destruction by our immune system, have evolved ways to turn our immune systems down. Because helminth infection, with multiple helminths, used to universal throughout our evolutionary history, our immune systems have evolved to account for their anti-inflammatory effect. Remove helminths, or worms, and their affect on our immune systems, and the result is an out-of-control immune system much more prone to chronic inflammatory reactions, causing allergies, asthma, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, etc., etc., etc.
In 1976 a researcher called Turton infected himself with a type of helminth (parasitic worm), hookworm (a type of helminth) so that he would have a reservoir of hookworm to study, and reported unexpectedly that his lifelong seasonal allergies disappeared so long as he was infected with the hookworms.
But, the seemingly radical idea that helminths (probiotic worms) might be related in some way to asthma predates Turton by sixty-three years. In 1913 Herrick wrote that 'Common to both bronchial asthma and helminth infection is an increase of the eosinophils (eosinophils in a normal person indicate infection with a helminth) of the blood. One day we'll ask the significance of this eosinophilia in this association'.
Unfortunately for allergy and asthma sufferers it wasn't until 1986, almost 75 years later, with the publication of the hygiene hypothesis by Godrey in the Lancet that investigation of this idea got underway.
In 1986 Godfrey proposed that a lack of exposure to infectious organisms in childhood was responsible for the increase in allergies, and demonstrated this with a study of large families. He showed that the older a child was in a large family the less likely they were to develop allergies. He reasoned that the younger siblings in large families were exposed to more childhood diseases and that this was responsible for their reduced rates of allergy. His theory came to be known as the Hygiene Hypothesis, and later as it was refined based on the work of hundreds of studies it evolved to become the Old Friends Hypothesis.
The Old Friends Hypothesis states that by introducing sewers, antibiotics, shoes, clean drinking water and vaccinations, we have reduced by a very large amount the variety and quantitie of benign infectious organisms that we are exposed to. Particularly helminths, or worms, that have been entirely eliminated in the industrialized world.
By elminating worms, bacteria and protozoa from out bodies we have deprived our immune systems of the stimulation and "practice" that it evolved to account for. Infection with worms and protozoa and a much larger variety and quantity of bacteria and viruses used to be universal. Their elimination deprives our immune systems of the kind of stimulation it evolved to account for as a certainty. Without that training and presentation of appropriate targets, ones it evolved to "expect", our immune system instead attacks our own tissues (this is autoimmunity) or benign pathogens like pollen and cat dander causing tissue damage (this is immune dysregulation). By these definitions diseases like asthma and allergies are not autoimmune diseases, but most people don't know, or care (nor should they), about the difference. In fact their is a debate within the scientific community right now about adding another classification to encompass non-autoimmune diseases involving chronic inflammation because these are in fact the most common types of immunological diseases. Very few diseases that are called autoimmune diseases by lay people actually meet the criteria for autoimmunity.
Helminthic therapy or worm therapy works by giving our bodies and immune systems benign, appropriate targets that allow our immune system to fulfill the purpose for which they evolved. Worm therapy works by giving the immune system the right targets and "distracting" our immune system from attacking the wrong things: us (autoimmune diseases) and pollen or cat dander (allergies or asthma), or the food we eat (Crohn's, UC, IBS, Celiac disease), or our nerves (multiple sclerosis), or thyroid (Hashimoto's thyroiditis) or our mucus membranes (Sjogren's Syndrome), etc.
Although deliberately infecting oneself with worms is a strange and hard to understand concept the potential application of worm therapy is incredibly broad. Most of our modern diseases, even things like depression and autism for just two examples, involve inflammation as a causative factor.
The impact of worm therapy on inflammation is profound. The most extreme inflammatory reaction is anaphylaxis in which the body's immune system insulted by something like a bee sting, goes into uncontrolled overdrive and if untreated will kill. Worm therapy has such a profound effect on the immune system that those hosting worm therapy do not ever get anaphylaxis, so the impact on the immune system of worm therapy is profound.
I used to suffer from awful asthma and allergies, to the extent that I could only breath comfortably if using oral prednisone in such high doses that I developed lipomas and became for the first time in my life very obese.
My aunt told me about a documentary she had seen on the BBC about worms and asthma and after investigating it and trying everything I could think of to obtain hookworm (one of the worms used in worm therapy) I went first to Cameroon and later to Belize to obtain hookworms.
Since I founded Autoimmmune Therapies in 2006 we have treated dozens of clients with a variety of diseases: allergies (food and airborn), multiple sclerosis, Sjogren's Syndrome, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and autism. The results have been remarkable, far better than those possible using modern drugs. Why this technique is not more widely available or known is a constant source of wonder for me.
However a small industry has grown up around helminthic therapy or worm therapy, including providers and support groups on Yahoo.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information. I promise to keep working at this site until it is complete, but it may take a few weeks or months to finish.
Jasper Lawrence,
Autoimmune Therapies
May 7, 2009
Until I have the site done you can contact me by decoding this email address, jasper ,,aatt. autoimmunetherapies dotcomb. Sorry, but spam is out of control, and when I finish this site contacting me will be much easier. Thanks.