Getting Sicker by Staying Healthier; Evidence of a Failed Paradigm
Once again, I'm going to tout my new favorite book, Parasite Rex from the author of my new favorite science blog, The Loom. It wasn't the writing that got me (though that was good), or the science (most readable). . . it was the content.
Dear Readers, parasites are far more than mere pests.
They are a part of human life. They may, in fact, be a necessary part of human life.
Meaning, when they are removed from human life, bad things may happen.
A few examples from the book caught my immediate attention.
Colitis and Crohn's disease affect 1 million Americans today. In both cases, a person's own immune system violently attacks the lining of the intestines. The inflammation it triggers ruins a person's digestion, and sometimes a surgeon may have to cut out a length of the damaged bowels. Both diseases can torment a person for a lifetime, and so far there's no cure for either. Yet, as common as they are today, you can't find any record of colitis or Crohn's disease before the 1930s. . . .
Some scientists think that the spread of these diseases was caused by the eradication of intestinal worms. The idea certainly fits their history. In the United States, they appeared first in affluent people in the cities -- the people, in other words, who would have been the first to be cleared of tapeworms, and other worms living in their bowels. . . . Intestinal parasites are still common in most of the world, but in countries where they've been recently readicated, colitis and Crohn's diease have followed fast. Even farm animals are starting to get bowel diseases as they've been getting treated with antiworm medicines. . . .
(Zimmer, Parasite Rex, Touchstone, 2000, pp. 212-213.)
Crohn's disease hits close to home. It runs a bit in my wife's family. She already suffers from a few autoimmune diseases like Crohn's, and they tend to multiply later in life.
So I was excited to continue reading Rex:
In 1997, scientists at the University of Iowa put (the) idea (that a dearth of parasites to fight causes the body's immune system to attack itself) into startling practice. They picked out seven people with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, who had gotten no relief from any conventional treatment. They fed them eggs from an intestinal worm. . . . Within a couple of weeks the eggs had hatched, the larvae had grown, and six out of the seven people went into complete remission.
(Ibid, p. 214. Emphasis mine. -P.)
A quick Googling reveals that this is now old news. A Saturday Evening Post article on the treatment and research (far, far more appropriately reprinted in the Earth Worm Digest!) went into more recent detail. "During the six-month study, five of the six patients went into remission that lasted between two to five months. On follow-up, patients were given the agent once every three weeks, and the team found that with this dosing schedule, they could maintain remission. People who were chronically ill for years went into complete remission--no diarrhea, no abdominal pain, no joint problems."
Really, this should come as no surprise. We are animals. We have evolved over eons to adapt to our environment. Parasites have almost always been a part of that environment. Removing the parasite does not trigger the body to stop trying to fight the parasite.
Addendum July 28, 2007: By popular demand, I'm including more links tracing the helminth research. Try reading a paper authored by Dr. Weinstock and his partner Dr. Summers. Also, the abstract of the study reveal more specifically the efficacy of the treatment after the study's conclusion.
Trichuris Suis,
the worm in question
Somewhere on the University of Iowa's sprawling website I found a little video news presentation featuring the little whippers flailing about in someone's bowels. Alas, I forgot to bookmark it.
Addendum, December 26, 2007: Dad found a bit more. It looks like Dr. Weinstock has moved to Tufts University. His research involves tissue sample comparisons and cool models of how the worms affect immune system response. Way over my head. Ah, well.
Behold, the theoretical complexity!
I finished Rex a few weeks ago. By strange coincidence, I recently noticed several examples of parasitical responses gone awry once the parasites are gone.
gomezticator, for example, reprinted and seconded someone's harangue against the missuse of pharmacological depression treatment. Since Rex, I've gotten a sneaking suspicion that our guts were not the only affected portion of today's shiny, disease-free and sanitary future. Validation of my hunch came from a friend's mention of an article in The Economist:
BACTERIA cause disease. The idea that they might also prevent disease is counterintuitive. Yet that is the hypothesis Chris Lowry, of Bristol University, and his colleagues are putting forward in Neuroscience. They think a particular sort of bacterium might alleviate clinical depression. (Again, emphasis mine.)
I don't blame gomezticator for missing this connection. Hell, I don't blame anyone. Plenty of medical professionals will find this new theory (should the testing prove the theory robust) absolutely heretical. These are, after all, the people that preach the Gospel of Constant Handwashing and Covering of Sneezes. Until I read that section in Rex, depression as a possible autoimmune symptom was not a concept I could have accepted. I only knew that, as the article mentioned, ". . . depression is becoming more common." I had -- and until more evidence is collected really still have -- no idea why.
I do have a theory, though, why this connection between diseases has gone so long ignored.
Note what I wrote above about our evolved immune systems. Remember that many don't believe this to be the case. God created us, so they believe. Satan or an indescribable God created all the ills that (pardon the pun) be-fall us. We use the term "dirty" to refer to thoughts that fall outside our definition of virtue, and "pure" to denote those in God's good graces. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."
Therefore, clean and free of disease equals happiness.
Right?
If not. . . .
Dear Readers, parasites are far more than mere pests.
They are a part of human life. They may, in fact, be a necessary part of human life.
Meaning, when they are removed from human life, bad things may happen.
A few examples from the book caught my immediate attention.
Colitis and Crohn's disease affect 1 million Americans today. In both cases, a person's own immune system violently attacks the lining of the intestines. The inflammation it triggers ruins a person's digestion, and sometimes a surgeon may have to cut out a length of the damaged bowels. Both diseases can torment a person for a lifetime, and so far there's no cure for either. Yet, as common as they are today, you can't find any record of colitis or Crohn's disease before the 1930s. . . .
Some scientists think that the spread of these diseases was caused by the eradication of intestinal worms. The idea certainly fits their history. In the United States, they appeared first in affluent people in the cities -- the people, in other words, who would have been the first to be cleared of tapeworms, and other worms living in their bowels. . . . Intestinal parasites are still common in most of the world, but in countries where they've been recently readicated, colitis and Crohn's diease have followed fast. Even farm animals are starting to get bowel diseases as they've been getting treated with antiworm medicines. . . .
(Zimmer, Parasite Rex, Touchstone, 2000, pp. 212-213.)
Crohn's disease hits close to home. It runs a bit in my wife's family. She already suffers from a few autoimmune diseases like Crohn's, and they tend to multiply later in life.
So I was excited to continue reading Rex:
In 1997, scientists at the University of Iowa put (the) idea (that a dearth of parasites to fight causes the body's immune system to attack itself) into startling practice. They picked out seven people with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, who had gotten no relief from any conventional treatment. They fed them eggs from an intestinal worm. . . . Within a couple of weeks the eggs had hatched, the larvae had grown, and six out of the seven people went into complete remission.
(Ibid, p. 214. Emphasis mine. -P.)
A quick Googling reveals that this is now old news. A Saturday Evening Post article on the treatment and research (far, far more appropriately reprinted in the Earth Worm Digest!) went into more recent detail. "During the six-month study, five of the six patients went into remission that lasted between two to five months. On follow-up, patients were given the agent once every three weeks, and the team found that with this dosing schedule, they could maintain remission. People who were chronically ill for years went into complete remission--no diarrhea, no abdominal pain, no joint problems."
Really, this should come as no surprise. We are animals. We have evolved over eons to adapt to our environment. Parasites have almost always been a part of that environment. Removing the parasite does not trigger the body to stop trying to fight the parasite.
Addendum July 28, 2007: By popular demand, I'm including more links tracing the helminth research. Try reading a paper authored by Dr. Weinstock and his partner Dr. Summers. Also, the abstract of the study reveal more specifically the efficacy of the treatment after the study's conclusion.
Trichuris Suis,
the worm in question
Somewhere on the University of Iowa's sprawling website I found a little video news presentation featuring the little whippers flailing about in someone's bowels. Alas, I forgot to bookmark it.
Addendum, December 26, 2007: Dad found a bit more. It looks like Dr. Weinstock has moved to Tufts University. His research involves tissue sample comparisons and cool models of how the worms affect immune system response. Way over my head. Ah, well.
Behold, the theoretical complexity!
I finished Rex a few weeks ago. By strange coincidence, I recently noticed several examples of parasitical responses gone awry once the parasites are gone.
gomezticator, for example, reprinted and seconded someone's harangue against the missuse of pharmacological depression treatment. Since Rex, I've gotten a sneaking suspicion that our guts were not the only affected portion of today's shiny, disease-free and sanitary future. Validation of my hunch came from a friend's mention of an article in The Economist:
BACTERIA cause disease. The idea that they might also prevent disease is counterintuitive. Yet that is the hypothesis Chris Lowry, of Bristol University, and his colleagues are putting forward in Neuroscience. They think a particular sort of bacterium might alleviate clinical depression. (Again, emphasis mine.)
I don't blame gomezticator for missing this connection. Hell, I don't blame anyone. Plenty of medical professionals will find this new theory (should the testing prove the theory robust) absolutely heretical. These are, after all, the people that preach the Gospel of Constant Handwashing and Covering of Sneezes. Until I read that section in Rex, depression as a possible autoimmune symptom was not a concept I could have accepted. I only knew that, as the article mentioned, ". . . depression is becoming more common." I had -- and until more evidence is collected really still have -- no idea why.
I do have a theory, though, why this connection between diseases has gone so long ignored.
Note what I wrote above about our evolved immune systems. Remember that many don't believe this to be the case. God created us, so they believe. Satan or an indescribable God created all the ills that (pardon the pun) be-fall us. We use the term "dirty" to refer to thoughts that fall outside our definition of virtue, and "pure" to denote those in God's good graces. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."
Therefore, clean and free of disease equals happiness.
Right?
If not. . . .