Infection With Ascaris Eggs Relieves Symptoms Of Ulcerative Colitis

Infection With Ascaris Eggs Relieves Symptoms Of Ulcerative Colitis.
The instance of a gentleman who swallowed barnacle eggs to treat his ulcerative colitis - and in truth got better - sheds light on how "worm therapy" might mitigate heal the gut, a new study suggests. "Our findings in this container report suggest that infection with the eggs of the T trichiura roundworm can alleviate the symptoms of ulcerative colitis," said go into number one P'ng Loke, an assistant professor in the department of medical parasitology at NYU Langone Medical Center bleeding. A generous parasite, Trichuris trichiura infects the jumbo intestine.

The findings could also cord to new ways to treat the debilitating disease, a silhouette of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) currently treated with drugs that don't always moil and can cause serious side effects, said Loke. The enquiry findings are published in the Dec 1, 2010 distribution of Science Translational Medicine.

Loke and his party followed a 35-year-old man with severe colitis who tried worm (or "helminthic") psychoanalysis to avoid surgical removal of his unalloyed colon. He researched the therapy, flew to a heal in Thailand who had agreed to give him the eggs, and swallowed 1500 of them.

The crew contacted Loke after his self-treatment and "was essentially symptom-free". Intrigued, he and his colleagues evident to follow the man's condition.

The study analyzed slides and samples of the man's blood and colon pile from 2003, before he swallowed the eggs, to 2009, a few years after ingestion. During this period, he was practically symptom-free for almost three years. When his colitis flared in 2008, he swallowed another 2000 eggs and got better again, said Loke.

Tissue bewitched during operative colitis showed a solid number of CD4+ T-cells, which are untouched cells that produce the inflammatory protein interleukin-17, the pair found. However, tissue taken after worm therapy, when his colitis was in remission, contained lots of T-cells that suppose interleukin-22 (IL-22), a protein that promotes gash healing.