[HN Gopher] I volunteered to be infected with 50 parasitic worms...
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I volunteered to be infected with 50 parasitic worms for a research
study
Author : zdw
Score : 141 points
Date : 2021-01-28 15:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| GizmoSwan wrote:
| Can they enter the brain?
| ufo wrote:
| These ones do not. You might be thinking about pork tapeworms.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Favourite parasites, Copepods...
|
| Exquisite election, nothing like a Lernaeolophus to appreciate
| our fine mammalian lifestyle. Nasty Necator, otherwise... yuck.
| foobarian wrote:
| Since you broached this path, do not google Dracunculiasis.
| rwmj wrote:
| Favourite parasite museum:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meguro_Parasitological_Museum I
| went a few years ago and it's amazing. I quite literally have
| the T-shirt.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Yup, parasites are really cunning life forms and often very
| neglected also by science. I used to be very interested by
| them in the past.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| I glad there are people willing to participate because I wouldn't
| be able to sleep knowing there's worms in me. Never mind the
| itching.
| dudeithinkBLM wrote:
| I'm afraid you are likely loaded with worms, even without your
| participation in this experiment.
| [deleted]
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Don't do this to me.
| mpfundstein wrote:
| there is a not so low prob you have worms. even without itching
| djrogers wrote:
| If gp lives in a developed country and hasn't traveled
| anywhere that hookworms are prevalent, then no - the
| probability they have hookworms is _very_ low.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| _Hookworms_ , maybe, but pinworms are insanely common. Yes,
| even in the developed world. Especially if you have kids...
| high_density wrote:
| ...what should I do?
|
| I remember pooping a really long worm some years ago, and
| taking a anti-worm medicine...
| tartoran wrote:
| Did it look flat? If so you had tapeworm. Look it up on
| google
| drenvuk wrote:
| I am disgusted but curious. This is great.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| So I keep reading reports about how hookworms are like a super
| cure for autoimmune disorders from allergies to Crohn's disease.
| Does anyone know why we can't just inject, ingest, or apply
| whatever it is that they emit? Like...why is there not a
| treatment for eczema yet better than steroid creams?
| saprolino wrote:
| From what I read on the internet, in order to have benefits a
| human being would need to get infected with worms in childhood.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| The adult in this article said his allergies went away.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Have an autoimmune condition. Medication works well but
| side effects are brutal.
|
| This is huge gross factor, but if it would give me a normal
| life I could tolerate it.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This is a bit old but ... https://web.archive.org/web/20060
| 701163959/http://www.kuro5h... (2006, kuro5hin)
| lsllc wrote:
| Apparently you can buy "pig whipworm" (Trichuris suis) eggs and
| ingest them. It seems they can't survive for long in your gut
| (so there's no danger of an infestation), but it's long enough
| to trigger whatever cure / autoimmune reset it is that you're
| looking for.
|
| This is just anecdotal (I know someone who did this and says
| that it worked) -- but please do your own research and consult
| a healthcare professional!!!
| rincebrain wrote:
| The three things that come to mind are
|
| A) it's extremely time-consuming and difficult to capture the
| mechanism for how organisms act in the middle of the human body
| in the middle of their lifecycle when we're not even sure what
| we're looking for, so it's just not been found yet.
|
| B) it might just be safe and cost-effective enough to give
| people worms temporarily as a treatment instead for now. (I
| don't know if this is the case, but if they're doing it for a
| study, the risk profile can't be that bad...)
|
| C) even if we isolate whatever mechanism they have (and can
| synthesize it readily), it's still an immune modulator, so all
| the same caveats for steroid creams might apply at any
| significant dose.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > even if we isolate whatever mechanism they have (and can
| synthesize it readily), it's still an immune modulator, so
| all the same caveats for steroid creams might apply at any
| significant dose.
|
| Sure, but it wouldn't be an infection you could spread to
| other people. It also wouldn't be an infection that could
| grow, of its own accord, to undesirable levels within you.
| That's a huge improvement.
| techdragon wrote:
| I suspect any final form for a "live" treatment, would
| probably be a two part sort of thing. "Take worms/eggs day
| 1, day 2, 3 or 4 you take the anti worming drug to prevent
| the worms getting much of a foothold"
| at_a_remove wrote:
| The pig whipworm eggs used previously for this purpose
| can _hatch_ in the human body but they cannot survive, so
| no foothold therapy is needed. Instead, they 're just
| enough to attract the attention of a perhaps overly-
| excitable immune system.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The pig whipworm eggs used previously for this purpose
| can _hatch_ in the human body but they cannot survive
|
| If this became a routine treatment, it seems pretty
| likely that they'd start being able to survive.
| war1025 wrote:
| That doesn't really follow.
|
| For something to evolve like that you need to re-
| introduce the mutated strains back to the source.
|
| If there is no re-introduction (which there wouldn't be,
| because the worms would be bred in an isolated
| environment and not the sewer system), then there isn't
| really anything to worry about. There is no selection
| pressure at the point where breeding and distribution
| occurs.
| high_density wrote:
| even if the 'gradually-evolving' process isn't provided,
| isn't there some genetic chance? (be it really small --
| like lottery?)
| war1025 wrote:
| The mutation would have to happen in the lab and not in
| the wild, since the pills would come from the lab.
|
| I imagine if such a thing did occur, they would just kill
| the batch they were breeding and start over from a known
| strain.
|
| (Not a microbiologist, so who knows though)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why would you need to reintroduce the mutated strains
| back to the source? They already have a plan for
| migrating from one host to another host; they don't need
| to migrate from their host back to a lab so their
| laboratory-bred eggs can be intentionally introduced into
| another host.
| war1025 wrote:
| You might end up with strains that could survive in
| humans, but those wouldn't be the strains being
| prescribed to people.
| jaggederest wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy
|
| Helminthic therapy is a real thing for people with severe
| autoimmune issues. There are folks in the US right now walking
| around with relatively mild hookworm infections and
| substantially fewer autoimmune symptoms :)
| josefresco wrote:
| Thank you for this. I have an autoimmune disease and welcome
| any and all alternative therapy options (to discuss with my
| doctor).
| chihuahua wrote:
| There was an episode of NPR's "This American Life" podcast
| in 2010 that included the story of someone who had terrible
| allergy problems and ended up curing that via deliberate
| hookworm introduction.
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/404/enemy-camp-2010/act-
| thr...
| refurb wrote:
| Because scientists don't know exactly what the mechanism is
| yet. But yes, they could potentially identify the mechanism and
| skip the worms.
|
| That said, Coronado Biosciences ran a pork hookworm clinical
| trial in the treatment of inflammatory bowel syndrome and it
| failed. More work needed.
| ExcavateGrandMa wrote:
| have a lombric :D
| bserge wrote:
| Interesting to me because I have experimented with various
| medication to find something that would work for my mental and
| physical problems. I think I've tried over 20 different drugs and
| combinations of them.
|
| Unlike Gwern, I still haven't shared any of it because I couldn't
| get my grabby hands on any of the actually effective ones, not
| even some more effective reuptake inhibitors (like, come on, I'm
| not asking for much, shitty healthcare systems!).
|
| Plus, I don't think anyone cares... but apparently some people do
| huh.
| stretchcat wrote:
| Surely weird flexes don't get much weirder than this.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| NO RAGERTS
| new_guy wrote:
| In Stargate, when a Goa'uld (worm) takes a host they replace the
| immune system. Obviously fictional, but an interesting parallel.
| todd8 wrote:
| The inverse correlation between parasitic infections and
| autoimmune disease is interesting and is explored in _Parasitic
| worms and inflammatory diseases_ , P. Zaccone et. al. [1].
|
| In parts of the world, for example USA, Canada, Australia,
| Europe, other locations, serious parasitic infection are now not
| common. The immune system, which co-evolved with parasites over
| millions of years appears to turn on our own bodies because of
| the lack of parasites to attack. This hypothesis (the _hygiene
| hypothesis_ ) is investigated in the cited paper.
|
| I referred to serious parasitic infections above because
| virtually everyone host some benign parasites such as the Demodex
| mite, a microscopic mite that lives on our eye lashes. See [2].
|
| Finally, let me recommend _Parasite Rex..._ by Carl Zimmer. [3]
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1618732/
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3884930/
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Parasite-Rex-Bizarre-Dangerous-
| Creatu...
| bserge wrote:
| Huh, never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. So it's like
| the immune system has so little work these days that it turns
| on its own body.
|
| By that hypothesis, willingly introducing some (preferably
| benign) parasite or infection would keep it busy so it doesn't
| attack itself?
|
| Just thinking out in text here, I'm tired heh
| nefitty wrote:
| It does sound absurd, but I'm fully expecting someone to try
| this out "in the name of health and productivity."
|
| Edit: Oh, it's already happening:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25961202
| bserge wrote:
| I would definitely try it if I had an autoimmune disease...
|
| Just imo, there's nothing wrong with experimenting on
| yourself, as long as you take the responsibility and accept
| the risk and possible consequences.
|
| Hacking is not only for electromechanical things :)
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| This guy infected himself with hookworms, because his
| allergies were so bad he was desperate. He subsequently
| started promoting the idea, and I think was even trying
| to distribute hookworms for awhile.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Epidemic-Absence-Understanding-
| Allerg...
|
| Edit: I read a more recent article about the guy, and it
| said he subsequently backed off the idea after his
| allergies came back.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Don't forget about waiving your right to access any
| social safety net (disability, unemployment,
| medicaid/medicare costs) that might become necessary as a
| result of your experiments.
| stevenjohns wrote:
| Entirely anecdotal, I believe the immune system is already
| working at high capacity to stop you from becoming sick from
| the dozens of fungi, bacteria and viruses you come across on a
| daily basis.
|
| The biggest metric I have for this is that when I am genuinely
| sick - with a cold or fever - it seems my body stops keeping
| things like HPV at bay and I start to see remnants of things
| like warts I haven't seen for years start to pop up again - and
| of course disappear again along with the fever.
| mattalex wrote:
| The best answer to give when a coworker asks you what you did
| over the weekend
| psychlops wrote:
| Eww.
| ufo wrote:
| Hookworms are a serious health problem in many parts of the
| developing world. If they manage to create a working vaccine it
| might be a game changer!
| drtillberg wrote:
| Strange the study might have used a placebo group of people
| infected with parasites. I guess they needed to test if their
| process actually was effective in generating hookworm infections?
| blendergeek wrote:
| They were testing a vaccine to prevent hookworm infection. [0]
| After giving the experimental vaccine, they intentionally
| inoculated the research subjects with hookworms to measure
| whether the vaccine prevented hookworm infection.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/JimmyBernot/status/1354443850153144321
| rkagerer wrote:
| Is inoculate the right word in this context?
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Thread Reader version:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1354443833388503043.html
| pmarreck wrote:
| Weird diet flex but OK
| ttraub wrote:
| There are numerous accounts on the internet of medical tourists
| trekking to Southeast Asia or Mexico to acquire helminths or
| similar parasitical organisms reputed to calm down the body's
| immune response. Specifically, sufferers of Crohn's Disease have
| reported relief from symptoms after taking in (via a cut in the
| skin, or walking barefoot in feces, or drinking contaminated
| water) a few helminths.[1]
|
| Too many helminths seems to have deleterious effects, however, so
| there seems to be a balance that must be struck.
|
| There is evidence that these worms affect the microbial mixture
| in the gut.[2]
|
| Generally speaking, modern humans live in sterile conditions
| whereas we have ferocious immune systems which evolved to handle
| filthy conditions. The theory is, given too little work to do,
| some people's immune systems start to attack the self.
|
| Anecdotally, I have an incredibly healthy daughter; we never
| hesitated to expose her to as many strangers as possible. "Would
| you like to hold our baby?" She also got mother's milk for
| several years (advantage of being an only child). Almost never
| gets sick and when she does, it's for less than 24 hours.
| Hopefully it stays that way :)
|
| 1. https://www.healthline.com/health/crohns-disease/hook-
| worms#...
|
| 2. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/parasitic-worms-
| may-...
| lostlogin wrote:
| > modern humans live in sterile conditions whereas we have
| ferocious immune systems which evolved to handle filthy
| conditions.
|
| Day care centres are what their immune system is designed to
| fight. I'm not sure how old your daughter is, but I have never
| been sicker than the few years my child attended one. I work in
| a hospital and my wife is a teacher, so it's not like we
| weren't exposed to bugs.
|
| No matter how clean the child care centre, kids are a Petrie
| dish of horrible diseases.
| jxramos wrote:
| The thing I don't get is how does the immune system simply not
| "atrophy" like any other system in the body that doesn't get
| used?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| The modern western inland diet contains a lot of wheat and
| other grains which have more omega-6 than omega-3
| polyunsaturated fatty acids. PUFAs are used in the synthesis
| of immune factors (interleukins, cytokines, ...) and this
| imbalance in the omega-3:omega-6 ratio causes more aggressive
| versions of those immune factors to be produced.
|
| Then there's sugar, processed food, work stress, particle
| emissions, microbes in indoor air... there are plenty of
| reasons for our immune system to attack itself.
| ttraub wrote:
| As I understand it, our immune systems are pretty busy even
| under today's sanitary conditions. We're constantly fighting
| off bacterial and viral invaders, 24x7. But, I guess we're
| just not as busy as we could be.
| tolstoshev wrote:
| I've tried it for celiac, but it didn't work for me. There's a
| whole underground economy of shipping people hookworms. They
| claim that about 80% of people with some form of auto-immune
| disease get benefit. I'm glad to see that there's more research
| being done in this area.
| bserge wrote:
| Thanks for the input! Sad to hear it didn't work, but I'm glad
| other people are trying stuff on their own.
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