Possible cure hope for Crohn's?

[Sir_Winston54]

Don't know where it's going, or when it might be available, but I know some of our people here have Crohn's and thought they might want to do a little more research on this story.

Text below:

Parasitic worm hope for Crohn's

Parasitic worms may be an effective treatment for the inflammatory bowel disorder Crohn's disease, research in the US suggests. A University of Iowa team found most of 29 Crohn's patients who swallowed a type of parasitic worm over a 24-week period showed an improvement. It is thought that helminths, such as roundworms and threadworms, may prevent Crohn's in the developing world.

The research is published in the journal Gut.

Crohn's disease rates are relatively high in the developed world, where few people carry helminths. But in the developing world, where it is relatively common for people to harbour these worms, rates of Crohn's are much lower.

In the developing world it is common for the worms' eggs to contaminate food, water, air, faeces, pets and wild animals. And they are also found on toilet seats and door handles. Once inside the body, the eggs usually lodge in the bowel, where they hatch into worms. Unlike other parasitic worms, such as tapeworms, they do not cause disease, and do not invade other parts of the body.

In the latest study, 29 adults with moderately active Crohn's disease swallowed 2,500 whipworm eggs of the species Trichuris suis - commonly found in pigs - every three weeks for 24 weeks in total. Most of the patients had had their symptoms for around four years and standard treatment had not worked.

Impressive results

Five patients dropped out, but halfway through, 22 patients had experienced a significant improvement in their symptoms, with 19 of them having no symptoms at all. By the end of the study, all but one had shown an improvement, with 21 reporting no symptoms. There were no signs that the worms had caused any side effects, but people also taking drugs to suppress their immune system at the same time tended to fare better.

Crohn's disease is caused by an excessive immune response to normal gut bacteria, and the researchers say that helminths suppress the immune response and consequently dampen down inflammation. As such they might provide a simple alternative to current medications, or could be used in combination.

They stress that the worms' eggs are shed in the stool, but cannot colonise another host until they have been incubated in the soil for several weeks, and so are unlikely to pose a public health risk.

However, they accept that larger trials are needed to confirm their results. Dr Alastair Forbes, a consultant gastroenterologist at St Mark's Hospital, London, and spokesman for the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease, said the research was interesting, but still at an early stage.

"It makes sense. What they are trying to do is to create a sort of anti-inflammatory response," he told the BBC News website. "It seems remarkable that some people are prepared to be infected with worms, but the fact that they are says a lot about how poor current treatments are."

However, Dr Forbes said more work was needed to ensure the therapy was safe. "People with Crohn's tend to have leaky bowels, so something that would not normally get into the circulation might do so in somebody with the disease," he said.​

 

[catalina_francisco]

Interesting concept. Seems the little creatures in our world are becoming more and more useful in medical science than anyone ever dreamed possible.

Catalina

 

[Yasashii_Kaze]

All I can think of is "And I thought taking two pills three times a day was a pain." Terrific if it works, but I'd still hate to be prescribed worm eggs as a treatment.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

All I can think of is "And I thought taking two pills three times a day was a pain." Terrific if it works, but I'd still hate to be prescribed worm eggs as a treatment.

From what I've heard of the symptomology of Crohn's, I think I'd *embrace* the worms before eating their eggs if it ended the problem!

 

[Yasashii_Kaze]

From what I've heard of the symptomology of Crohn's, I think I'd *embrace* the worms before eating their eggs if it ended the problem!

You make a good point.

 

[Homburg]

I'm horrifically icked out. *shudder*

But really happy for the folks I know with Crohns if it works.

 

[Netzach]

I've read about this eons ago, but I've never seen a single shred of follow-up on it. I'd take a worm in a NYC minute before I'd take some of the other options. I'm dying to know what next on this one.

Gut which is a British journal, has also been one of the few sources to report the results of a diet in which all refined wheat and refined sugars are eliminated in CD and UC patients. The remission rate is higher than that on any medication, if I remember correctly, but this kind of dietary change is scoffed at and sometimes even discouraged by US doctors, who will usually put pt's on an ONLY wheat and refined sugar diet. Nestle is allowed to market a nutritional product as something specifically for CD pt's - and it's basically sugar and corn syrup. The diet was reported on in 1985 in its pages, but my GI and every GI I've ever talked to just looks at me like I'm a wingnut if I talk about it.

If anyone finds out more about the worms, I'd love to hear it.

Forgive me for my cynicism, but you can't make as much money off worm eggs and chicken soup with carrots as you can off of Remicade and Pentasa.

I'm wondering when/why they can't just make me about 9cm of intestine out of some dacron or copper pipe or inner tube or something. It's only 9 cm.

 

[Nymph_Kitten]

My 13 year old daughter was diagnosed with Crohn's back in December. They haven't gotten her treatments quite right yet, so she still has a lot of pain and problems.

I'd love it if there were any hope of a cure, but I just don't see this as being it.

 

[Netzach]

22 out of 29 people is actually an astoundingly strong performance.

Of everyone I've ever spoken to, I've never known one person to have benefit from pentasa, and yet everyone gets it. It is hard to stick with those 16 a day, but I think most of us at least make the effort for a while.

ETA: pentasa, for those not in the know is, basically a glorified 300 dollar a month aspirin that delivers further down your pipeline - in the case of pentasa, more in your small intestine in the case of asacol in your large intestine. It's a sound idea - great anti-inflammatory with the least side effects, but my anecdotal evidence on listservs and talking to other CD peeps is basically "wow, those blue caplets were pretty additions to my poop - I was still flaring."

 

[FurryFury]

This does look hopeful. As someone who lost a parent, in part, because of this disease I'm happy to see this on the horizon.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Forgive me for my cynicism, but you can't make as much money off worm eggs and chicken soup with carrots as you can off of Remicade and Pentasa.

So true. A friend of mine in Oz who has been heavily into natural/alternative therapy most of his life believes most of the serious diseases and ailments can be cured but are not simply because it would hurt the medical money making machine too much to do so. Imagine all those cured people who no longer needed the help of doctors and drug companies to keep them alive and swallowing the latest greatest chemical relief treatment.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2120/2267651270_9c0dbfa869_t.jpg Catalina

 

[Netzach]

So true. A friend of mine in Oz who has been heavily into natural/alternative therapy most of his life believes most of the serious diseases and ailments can be cured but are not simply because it would hurt the medical money making machine too much to do so. Imagine all those cured people who no longer needed the help of doctors and drug companies to keep them alive and swallowing the latest greatest chemical relief treatment.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2120/2267651270_9c0dbfa869_t.jpg Catalina

I don't know if I'm that good a conspiracy theorist or that strict about not doing anything unnatural - I LIKE my immunosuppressant. but I don't think people are getting realistic information about their meds when pharma is sending doctors to conferences in the islands for the promise that they will deliver all of their Crohn's patients to that interest, and basically rep the med in their office. And yes, that's how it works - M calls it "collecting box tops." I'm sure he gets a smaller kickback for 6MP than for Remicade which is a huge huge moneymaker. One so shiny and tempting that there was a great bust on Centocor overcharging medicaid in the thousands of dollars per dose and cleaning up till they got caught on this. Doesn't matter - at 5-8 grand an infusion everyone still gets a taste when they put someone on this.

I don't feel like I was getting realistic information about a medication which induces longterm (over 3 mos) remission in 15-20 in 100 people, short term in most, and kills 2 in the same hundred is touted as "a safe drug" by my MD. Literally the first words out of his mouth. Because if I don't hop on it, he loses a box top. I don't hold it against him personally, they're all on this bandwagon. There is a part of your brain which med school seems to remove and it's the part that does anything your peers aren't doing.

If nothing but nothing else was working and I was on my second resection and I was eating exactly as I should and doing everything right and nothing was working, sure I'd try it. Are there people who do well on it, should be on it? Absolutely.

But to me it's a much bigger gun than it's being touted as - I know parents who have put their children on this med before even trying any of the lower tier immunos because the MD did such a good sales pitch. As crappy as it was to wait a year and see if I could eke my way off steroids and onto an immunosuppressant and now, tentatively, off that (though I think I'm going to go back on) I'm glad I went that route. It can take a long time for your metabolism to sort out those other meds and actually make use of them, and it took mine about a year to start gaining benefit from 6mp when it takes a lot of people 3-6 mos.

 

[snowy ciara]

Thanks for the posting Sir W. I had a similar idea, but Gracie shot it down!

Cron's was first "discovered" among the new world rich (the article I read said it was in NYC) around the turn of the century. Er, that is, the last century. 1900. Anyway, it was first found among rich patients who had access to clean water. It began appearing among the very rich in other cities, and you can track the "spread" of the disease among developing nations. It's interesting because generally, disenterric diseases fall as a nation becomes more developed. The theory is that the clean water is the cause.

Your gut has all this bacteria to clean out the harmful stuff in what you eat and drink, and when it has nothing to do, it attacks your good stomach bacteria and eventually the lining of your stomach, colon and rectum. All or part of these may be affected.

In my case, I was feeling really bad one night and was talking to Gracie about it when I came up with this brilliant idea! See, the bacteria in my innards is apparently bored with nothing to do. And the weather was cold and nasty at my house, and Grace's, and Netzach's. So I figured we should all go to Mexican Riviera! (Since every time I've been there I've had to drink bottled water. Once I mistakenly brushed my teeth with tap water and was mildly ill for 2 days afterwards.) I decided, we could go down, have a drink of water to give the bored bacteria something to do, drink margaritas, oggle cabana boys and bois and girls, and get warm all in one swell foop.

Gracie turned it down, because she said that hard liquor (like tequila) would make us all feel worse. I think it was because there were no cookies in my scenario.

Anyway, if any Crohn's persons want to have my Yahell so we can commiserate or help each other out or anything, drop me a PM and I'll add youl. I don't care if you're in remission or not! Believe me, the fact that Netzach is doing so well gives me hope. And when you're passing molten, broken, glass every time you're in the loo, you need all the hope you can get.

 

[kitten]

My brother has Crohn's. A very rare form. He had to be hospitalized before they figured out what it was, because he had a large (4 or 5 inches long, 3 inches wide or so) ulcer on his LEG. He was in the hospital for around a week and a half, and after they figured it out, I think he had to go through this weird chemo-like thing. It was scary.

Though if he hadn't been hospitalized, people wouldn't have taken a second look at the fact that I might need more testing for autoimmune stuff (my dad has Alopecia), and I might not have started to get treated at all for anything. (Turns out, I don't exactly have Lupus, but I have tons of symptoms, and I'm being treated for it. Essentially, I have it, but the blood test only confirms that I have one out of two of the antibodies.)

Anyway, after that little rant about myself... There have been numerous articles like this within the past few years, and none of them, to my knowledge, have really lead anywhere. Yeah.

 

[naxalite0906]

We had a friend of the family who had crohn's. He had suffered with it for almost 30 years until he unfortunately passed away last year (it wasnt the Crohn's, but because he developed cancer.) I was always told by my parents that the doctors were baffled by the fact that he had dealt with crohn's for so long without needing a bag fitted. He always put it down to self control and meditation. He was one of the nicest men I had ever met, and it was such a great loss to everyone who knew him, but he was proof that you can deal with things like this on your own.

Hopefully this breakthrough can be another way that people can deal with it. Having it is not something I would wish on anyone, so I am glad there is now hope.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I don't know if I'm that good a conspiracy theorist or that strict about not doing anything unnatural - I LIKE my immunosuppressant. but I don't think people are getting realistic information about their meds when pharma is sending doctors to conferences in the islands for the promise that they will deliver all of their Crohn's patients to that interest, and basically rep the med in their office.

Yep, I'm not into throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but modern medicine is a lot about money and convenience more so than the patient's real well being. Parts of it and some within the field are good and necessary, but other parts and people are not the best options. I detest how the traditional medical establishment has been conctantly and consistently dismissing the value in alternative and natural therapies, even at times labelling them dangerous and in need of banning, and yet some of those very treatments and areas of information from the alternative field are now being adopted by traditional practitioners, though often ignoring the decades and centuries of the knowledge before and claiming it as a new discovery of western medicine. Phhtt, I hate people who steal ideas and knowledge and then claim it as their own while putting down the original founders as dangerous, negligent and ignorant.

Catalina

 

[Netzach]

Thanks for the posting Sir W. I had a similar idea, but Gracie shot it down!

Cron's was first "discovered" among the new world rich (the article I read said it was in NYC) around the turn of the century. Er, that is, the last century. 1900. Anyway, it was first found among rich patients who had access to clean water. It began appearing among the very rich in other cities, and you can track the "spread" of the disease among developing nations. It's interesting because generally, disenterric diseases fall as a nation becomes more developed. The theory is that the clean water is the cause.

Your gut has all this bacteria to clean out the harmful stuff in what you eat and drink, and when it has nothing to do, it attacks your good stomach bacteria and eventually the lining of your stomach, colon and rectum. All or part of these may be affected.

In my case, I was feeling really bad one night and was talking to Gracie about it when I came up with this brilliant idea! See, the bacteria in my innards is apparently bored with nothing to do. And the weather was cold and nasty at my house, and Grace's, and Netzach's. So I figured we should all go to Mexican Riviera! (Since every time I've been there I've had to drink bottled water. Once I mistakenly brushed my teeth with tap water and was mildly ill for 2 days afterwards.) I decided, we could go down, have a drink of water to give the bored bacteria something to do, drink margaritas, oggle cabana boys and bois and girls, and get warm all in one swell foop.

Gracie turned it down, because she said that hard liquor (like tequila) would make us all feel worse. I think it was because there were no cookies in my scenario.

Anyway, if any Crohn's persons want to have my Yahell so we can commiserate or help each other out or anything, drop me a PM and I'll add youl. I don't care if you're in remission or not! Believe me, the fact that Netzach is doing so well gives me hope. And when you're passing molten, broken, glass every time you're in the loo, you need all the hope you can get.

I'd take some tequila to get me to consider drinking the water.
I'll have the puerco en salsa verde but pass on all the tortillas and chips. And rice.

 

[snowy ciara]

I'm getting hungry for real Mexican food now. Ironically enough, I've discovered that I can still eat tamales, but not corn chips, corn tortillas, corn muffins or anything else corny. My Dr. said "don't they soften the corn with lye or something when they make it into masa for the tamales?" They do. But I'm so desperate that I don't care.