Helminthic 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 (see reasoning here) It is certainly the term used by scientists and those in the know, so if you want to find good information you will have to use the term scientists use. Any research into the epidemiology of various diseases, or human or animal 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.
Pubmed is a great resource for peer-reviewed papers on medical research and is published and maintained by the National Institutes for Health. End of nit.
Because I pioneered the availability of helminthic therapy based on the use of symbionts with humans as their definitive hosts 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 helminthic therapy I will concentrate on posting about that.
What is Helminthic therapy
Helminthic therapy involves deliberate infection with or exposure to helminths or their ova.
Here are some useful links for those of you interested in the science:
Autoimmune Therapies website (check out the various pages devoted to particular diseases, as well as the About page, Safety page, Links and News.
Helminthic therapy is a technique for treating the “modern diseases” involving immune dysregulation (including autoimmunity) and chronic inflammation, 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.
Helminthic therapy is an attempt to restore some of the organisms that we co-evolved with, that shaped our immune system. Briefly, helminths educate our immune system through exposure early in life, and while we host them down regulate our inflammatory response. In the west where helminths are almost unknown the result is large numbers of people with poorly regulated, over active immune systems and an explosion of diseases involving chronic inflammation.
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 because helminth infection, and infection with a much larger variety and frequency of various protozoa and bacteria, is still so common.
Helminths, like any organism that lives in or on us, has to prevent their destruction by our immune system, and 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.
This might sound like a repulsive concept, and it is, but consider that about 90% of the cells in or on you right now are not self tissue. This is possible because bacteria, viruses and moulds are so much smaller than human cells.
In 1976 a researcher called Turton infected himself with 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 children in large families were less likely to develop allergies. He reasoned that they 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.
Of course many immunological disorders can be triggered by various immune insults, including infections or disease. So the Hygiene Hypothesis was later refined based on the work of hundreds of studies 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 our 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 works by giving our bodies and immune systems benign, appropriate targets that allow our immune system to fulfill the purpose for which they evolved. Helminthic 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.
Helminths also secrete or excrete various immuno modulatory molecules that have profound impacts on the functioning of the immune system. Simply put the immune system of a person infected with hookworm or whipworm appears to be better regulated, produce fewer pro inflammatory components, and more anti inflammatory components.
Although deliberately infecting oneself with parasites is at first a strange and hard to accept concept when one thinks about it not being infected with these organisms is what is strange. We evolved with a much larger variety of organisms, including helminths, inhabiting our bodies throughout our lives. 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 helminthic 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. Infection with helminths has such a profound effect on the immune system that those hosting helminths do not ever get anaphylaxis, so the impact on the immune system of helminths is profound. Anaphylaxis is an extreme form of allergy, most commonly associated with peanut allergy.
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 helminthic 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, including providers and support groups on Yahoo and Facebook.
More to come later.
Jasper Lawrence
how can you find someone for “hookworm” therapy in Denver Colorado or Colorado Springs- ??? ulcerative colitis is about to take the colon away and help is appreciated with reputable contacts- thanks
Hi “Clara”,
For Ulcerative Colitis the better organism is whipworm, which Autoimmune Therapies also sells. We cannot and will never ship to the US, nor are there providers of helminthic therapy working in the USA since the FDA visited us and classified helminths as an Investigational New Drug. This makes it impossible for doctors to cooperate in providing this therapy in the USA.
Jasper
Is there any way to receive orders from Autoimmune Therapies into the USA? I am currently ordering TSO from Ovamed but the cost is too much to continue long-term. I would like to start using the Human Whipworm but I am worried that I will not be able to receive it in the USA. Any suggestions on possible loopholes would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Bailey
Not in the US, we do not ship to the USA under any circumstances. But if you can travel we can ship to you most places, and one or two trips every three to five years will likely do it. Please contact us for details. http://autoimmunetherapies.com/contact.html
From an early age and since then I have asthma inhaler use predisolona I want to know if the hookworm parasite would heal me and that I can cause side effects, live in Colombia actualemnte also want to know where to get this parasite here. I have 30 years now and I’m tired of this disease. (I got to use the translator to be able to try to understand this paragraph)
Hi Leonardo
I’m sorry it’s taken us so long to respond to your query but we’ve been badly short-staffed for months. If you’re still interested, please read our website (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/), which will answer most of your questions. If you then want to contact us, please use our contact details page (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html) to get in touch.
I have in inflammatory bowel disease AND I suffer from allergies and the more I read and learn, the more I know this is right for me and others I know. I am currently trying to work around the whole “not in the US” thing because, well lets face it, its stupid and I know I would benefit. I was wondering if there is anything I can do to help out with pushing this into the US? I have an 8 year old cousin with Crohn’s who has not grown even an inch in height or weight in over a year due to her condition and it is hard to just sit back and watch her suffer knowthing that help is out there and that our government is the only thing standing in the way. If there is someone I can write, call, email, if there is anything I can do to help out anyone associated with helminithic therapy please let me know.
Hi Claire
I doubt you’ll be reading this after having to wait so long for a reply (we’ve been badly short-staffed for months) but if you’re still interested, please read our website (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/), which will answer most of your questions.
If you want to help get the message out about this therapy, you could join the Yahoo Helminthic Therapy Forum (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/) and tell others about it. When you join this forum, they’ll send you several documents, including a list of links to more than 100 helminthic therapy success stories that include reports from people with IBS and allergies.
If you want to contact us, please use our Contact details (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html) to get in touch.
My son has been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and I would like to know more about use of hookworms and their use in the UK- are there any clinical trials here about it?
Hi Debbie
There was one UK trial a few years ago using hookworms for Crohn’s disease that was carried out by the University of Nottingham, although this was only meant to check out the safety of the therapy and not how effective it is.
The only source of hookworm in the UK is ourselves and, if you’re still interested, please read our website (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/), which will answer most of your questions.
If you join the Yahoo Helminthic Therapy Forum (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/) they’ll send you a document listing links to more than 100 helminthic therapy success stories that include a large number of reports from people with Crohn’s disease. This is really worth reading!
If you then want to contact us, please use the links on our Contact Details page (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html) to get in touch.
I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Can you tell me what might be the therapy for that? Thanks!
I suggest you call us (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html) to discuss your case personally.
I have allergies and ashmta and i am unable to take allergy shots at least i was as a child because it made both worse. I also have fibromyalgia and i was wondering if you have had seen any benefits in fibromyalgia with this type of therapy. I am from the USA and I will bring this up to my physician when i see him next but I think there is a strong probability that he will not consider this type of therapy. I am wondering if you know of any physicans that you could recommend in Michigan or really anywhere in the US that I could talk to about this type of treatment. Any information that you could give would be wonderful and very helpful for me! at this point i am willing to try anything!!
Hi, asthma and allergies can respond well to helminthic therapy, but fibromyalgia can complicate the treatment, so I suggest you call or email us to discuss your case. Our contact details are here: https://www.facebook.com/autoimmunetherapies/info
Fran
hi i was wondering do you sell hookworms, and can they kills candida/yeast infections?
and are hookwarms safe, even after bad bacteria in yr body has gone?
thanks
Yes, we do sell hookworm, and yes, they are safe in the numbers that we supply.
You can read about the safety of the therapy, and a lot more besides, in our FAQ:
http://autoimmunetherapies.com/documents/FAQ.pdf
Candida is not an obvious candidate for helminthic therapy, but there is some evidence that hookworm effect changes in the balance of other organisms in the gut, and there has been one hookworm host who said that she thought hookworm had helped in dealing with her candida.
If you want to talk more about this, call Ross, our Customer Services Manager, on: +44 2081 235 364, or email him at: customer_service@autoimmunetherapies.com
Hi, I do sell them via autoimmunetherapies.com but your question reflects a profound difference in how I view the body and things like Candida, etc., and how you do. You cannot and never will “kill” your candida or yeast infections in my view, nor should you try to. Instead promote other healthy micro organisms to compete with it and others so a healthy balance is achieved. As to whether or not hookworm would help in that, it might. But you would be better off never using antibiotics or antimicrobials again unless your life is threatened, and working over the next couple of years to recolonise your body with a wide variety of benign micro organisms of all types.
Jasper
Have been reading alot of material on your work and that of AIT and i think the work that is being done is groundbreaking! My partner has UC and although medication (Asacol) is controlling it the symptoms the side effects for her have been horific, always feeling sick, chronic fatigue and continual back and side pain. She recently felt so down she stopped taking the medication for about 5 weeks, after the first 3 weeks she changed and her old personlity returned but alas the symtoms also returned.
I am currently writing this at the side of her bed in hospital as she has just returned from yet another colonoscopy. We have reached a turning point in life and feel medication is not the way forward, we are seeking support now from our GP to monitor her if we are able to go down the therapy route.
I will do my best to join the others who have posted in Yahoo blogs and report progress, the only thing that is puzzling me about the whole process is that i cannot find one single article that someone has had the therapy and had no benefit?
In advqnce many thanks to you and your team for all your work on this! I am sure i will be in touch in the near future!
Best Regards
Simon
Hi Simon
On behalf of Jasper, please accept my thanks for your encouraging words, and I’m really sorry to hear about your partner’s situation. Hopefully, she will be one of the 80% who benefit from helminthic therapy.
In the meantime, have you considered switching to Low Dose Naltrexone? This is rated as the second-best treatment for UC by one of the crowd-source solutions websites – second only to corticosteroids in fact – and it has minimal side effects.
http://curetogether.com/ulcerative-colitis/treatments/
Unfortunately, not enough people are using this site to report their successes with helminths for this therapy to show up there yet!
Please let us know whenever you think we might be of help to you.
Fran
I am interested in obtaining hookworm therapy, but I am hesitant. My primary concern is controlling the number of worms in your system. Sure, to have 10-15 worms is effective, but do they not reproduce? What keeps the number, and therefore the safety, manageable?
Hi, Toni, that’s a very legitimate concern, and it’s why we only use organisms that are incapable of reproducing within a human host. Hookworm, for example, require a period of incubation in soil at a specific temperature and humidity, so they won’t ever multiply inside a person, nor infect anyone else.
There are more details in our FAQ: http://autoimmunetherapies.com/documents/FAQ.pdf and a lot more information in this blog post: http://blog.autoimmunetherapies.com/gut_buddies/helminthic-therapy-2/
And here are our contact details: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Helminthic-Therapy/7587508932?sk=info