Gastroenterologist Joel Weinstock | Meeting the Minds
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His parasite theory stirs a revolution
"What if I told you," Joel Weinstock said, "there were countries where the doctors had never seen hay fever?"
It is another piece of evidence, another "aha" moment in the global medical mystery that Weinstock - the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts-New England Medical Center - has narrowed down to one chief suspect: the worms.
Weinstock, 59, specializes in studying why immunological diseases - everything from hay fever and asthma to diabetes and multiple sclerosis - are on the rise in developed countries but remain relatively uncommon in undeveloped countries. He believes these diseases, many of which were almost unheard of 100 years ago, are because of changes in our environment, a lack of exposure to something. And he thinks that something may be the worms.
"We realized that one thing people always had was intestinal worms," he said. "But in the mid-20th century we started deworming children in developed countries. So we've developed a theory that perhaps deworming was helping these diseases."
This theory - which is currently being tested in laboratory trials on how parasitic worms, known as helminths, regulate response to disease - has earned Weinstock the title of "Best and Brightest" from Esquire magazine, which honored him in its recent "Genius Issue." The magazine hailed his theory as a glimpse into a "brand-new scientific revolution, a paradigm shift in the way we think about the human body."
The crux of that scientific revolution is a bit of role reversal. The parasites that we have been told to avoid - such as hookworm and pinworm - may be the good guys, while excessive hygiene may be the bad guy.
"I get about 5,000 e-mails a year from patients all over the world asking what to do," he said. "People know that something isn't right. They keep their kids in the cleanest environments and they get asthma. We get all of these things that were rare becoming common. And a lot of it comes down to hygiene. Excessive hygiene can potentially lead to disease."
The "hygiene hypothesis," which was first proposed nearly two decades ago, argues that aspects of cleanliness prevent the immune system from programming itself to fight off disease.
"The big question is what are those aspects? We don't want to go back to the standards of the 1800s," Weinstock said. "Public hygiene and cleanliness are very good for us, but removing ourselves entirely from our natural environment is bad for us. We need to figure out the aspects of dirt and exposure that are good for us and hopefully we can find a balance."
Weinstock, who ran a center for digestive diseases at the University of Iowa before arriving at Tufts-NEMC in 2005, said that being a researcher has always come naturally to him.
"I grew up in the space race. When other kids went to play sports, I went to the library to read about rocket motors. My friends and I loved to tinker. Research was my hobby then, and it hasn't gone away," he said.
He said he hopes his research will soon lead to helminths-based drug therapies and vaccines.
"Will people be afraid to take a worm pill?" he asked, acknowledging an obvious squeamishness. "I don't think so."
And while he is cautious about advising any of his desperate e-mailers until all of the facts are in, he is comfortable telling parents one thing.
"When people ask me what to do, I tell them to let their kids play in the dirt," he said.
"And it's OK if they don't wash their hands every time."
Anna drinks worm eggs as a treatment
Who would deliberately drink a dose of gut worms? The answer is Anna Glanz, an ordinary mother-of-two from Iowa.
She's testing the remarkable theory that not all parasites are necessarily bad for us. Some of them may actually help us fight diseases.
A BBC documentary looks at how some parasites are so well-adapted to using humans as hosts, that when you take them away, there are unexpected results.
Ulcerative colitis is a disease of the intestine caused by the immune system over-reacting - in this disease the white blood cells attack the gut as though it's a foreign invader, making it bleed.
Mother-of-two, Anna Glanz, from Iowa, suffers from it and gets terrible cramps and sudden, intense attacks of diarrhoea.
The disease is incurable, but she is now taking part in an experimental trial run by Dr Joel Weinstock, a specialist in bowel disorders.
He's giving her worms to try to treat the disease.
: "Worms require humans to survive. In essence the worms are part of us and it's possible that we've become interdependent and removing worms has resulted in an imbalance to our immune systems.
"People have what I consider an irrational fear of worms. Nobody wants to go to the toilet and look into the toilet and see something wiggle".
Another person feeling the benefit of a worm infestation is academic researcher Alan Brown, who picked up hookworms while on a field-trip outside the UK.
The worm hangs around damp earth or water droplets, and on contact with skin burrows through and heads for the gut.
There it attaches itself to the wall - and drinks blood to live.
However, in western countries, where people are well-nourished, a moderate infestation is likely to have no nasty side-effects at all.
Dr Brown examines his own faeces under the microscope to try to gauge how many worms currently reside within him.
"Given the number of eggs there, there's about 300 hookworms in my guts."
However, there's a useful effect - his hayfever has virtually disappeared, and now he is working on the powers of the hookworm with a view to developing an asthma drug.
He said: "My wife's horrified - she's totally convinced that one day I'm going to infect the whole family."
Weinstock, 59, specializes in studying why immunological diseases - everything from hay fever and asthma to diabetes and multiple sclerosis - are on the rise in developed countries but remain relatively uncommon in undeveloped countries. He believes these diseases, many of which were almost unheard of 100 years ago, are because of changes in our environment, a lack of exposure to something. And he thinks that something may be the worms.
In undeveloped countries the kids don't eat Mcdonald's three times a week, consume dyes, high frutose corn syrup, have plastic toys which are giving off fumes, not alot of car fumes either. They aren't given tons of antibiotics and vaccines. They eat real food, get plenty of sunshine, and most likely mom knows some herb that gets rid of the worms.
Myself I had alot of of parasites, I still have them, just not as many. The more I get rid of the better I feel. Personally I think the worms that guy has are telling him it all cool to have worms.
One more thing, people in this country are not all that clean.
I agree with your points. There are other factors like the ones you brought up that it seems he’s not taking into consideration. I think worms are nasty & I know since I became infected I have been feeling like hell, tired, foggy brain, etc. Not knowing what was going on and blaming it all on everything else, but worms being the root cause.
However I do recall seeing some educational program or something about 10 years ago where some researchers or doctors stated that everyone has thousands of worms they don't know about and they felt the worms gave them balance and were harmless. Something like that. But I can't agree with all that. Otherwise why are dogs being dewormed? Haven't heard much about it since, only the reverse claim that humans DON'T have parasites unless in an underdeveloped county.
Maybe they are just promoting whatever belief benefits them in the long run. Maybe deworming dogs is profitable but deworming humans isn’t, so they feel it’s best to pacify us with these theories that human worm infections either rarely exist or are beneficial to us until its too late and all the damage has been done then blame it on something else.
My son had asthma and allergies up until aboout three years ago he is now ten I ran across some findings that said taking oils helped. I had him start taking the deep sea cod liver oil and nothing since not even colds!!! I would never have my son drink worm eggs I have seen the changes in my self with this paragone cleanse and do not have the slightest doubt that I made a bad decision to start our cleansing. Both my son and I are doing fine. We don't have money to go out to eat anywhere I cook at home its hard with being a single parent, school full time and work part time but when you want your health back you do what it takes. Anything is possible when you make the time SLOW DOWN.
Bythc I agree with you fully.
This reminds me of that song. there was an old lady who swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed the fly, I think she'll die. There was an old lady who swallowed a spider, she swallow the spider to catch the fly, I don't know why she swallowed the fly, I think she'll die and so on.
This is all so crazy, you can't have parasites, if you think you have parasites you're crazy. Parasites are good for you, now. Parasites are good for the doctor's wallets, imo. You never get well and they can treat you for all kinds of stuff, to support their gone with the wind lifestyle. What a bunch of #*&#@# @#*#.
THere are thousands of 'parasites' out there(I use the term parasites loosely, because we don't know if they are indeed PARASITES). We don't know enough about them all to know which are TRULY harmful to us, and which might be beneficial to us.
I'll tell you why we need worms... we need them to help us decompose after we die... not before!
I always wondered how worms could get in the casket of a dead person... then I realised that we take them in with us!
But I'll pass on thinking that something like worms could be good for us when they are known to eat our nutrients then poop in us causing ammonia and acidity that makes us sick... the parasites even have parasites sometimes... ugh!!
I lost about 3 nights of sleep when I first learned about parasites! No thank you.... I'll stick to my chinese herbs twice a year 'just in case.'
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