New Therapeutical Approaches for MS: Parasites Lend Helping Hand (Part 1)

by Wiebke Heiss/MEDICA.de

The illness may cause severe disabilities in youngish people. Why? Scientists do not know. Multiple sclerosis is a mysterious neurological disease and the search for new therapeutic approaches is an urgent issue. Now, attention has been drawn towards worms. 15/11/2009

These thoughts cause the yuck effect straight away: Worms that pass through human skin, that cavort in the intestine, that travel through the whole body, that infest lung and liver. Parasites are human's enemies because they do harm, damage organs and may even kill. This is reason enough to fight them all over the world. Hook and whip worms though have changed sides a little while ago from harming agent to helper and now assist medics in fighting autoimmune diseases such as asthma, hay fever or Crohn's disease. The tiny invertebrates have also recently become the centre of research for treating multiple sclerosis (MS).

The medical world does not even dare to think about a cure of MS yet. Nobody still knows what triggers this neurological condition - it only seems probable that it happens in early adolescence. „Researchers try to find out what the triggering momentum is“, Frauke Zipp explains, neurologist the the Charité in Berlin. „It is a difficult task though since medics can only diagnose the disease when it has turned into a full-blown MS.“ Scientists are a hundred percent sure only about the signs they can observe: MS normally starts between the age of 20 and 40 and more than 100,000 people are affected in Germany. Most probably the body's defences are to blame because immune cells that normally fight intruding bacteria and viruses suddenly turn against own nerve structures.

Blurry vision, numb legs, pain, paralysis and fatigue are often among the symptoms which most of the time almost completely disappear again - only to strike again during the next relapse. This kind of MS affects about 90 to 95 percent of the patients. In the long run this variety will change into a progressive form for about half of those affected - relapses do not occur anymore but the body's state now continuously worsens. The remaining five to ten percent of the patients suffer from the very beginning from this on-going version of MS - sometimes progressing very slowly over decades, sometimes quickly over a few years. MS is a neurological disease that is responsible for most disabilities occurring in younger age.

MS patients seem to get on well with hookworms

Researchers form the University of Nottingham search for new approaches resulting in a decrease of the amount of relapses – and turn for help to hookworms. „Our hopes are based on an Argentinian study“, Cris Constantinescu says. The South American scientists recently reported that MS patients that were naturally infected by intestinal worms did better in all health areas than MS patients without the parasites. „Additionally, we are supported by observations that show that intestinal worms and MS basically exclude each other from an epidemiological point of view“, the immunologist says and, hence, justifies a study planned for 2010: Tiny hookworms - only to be detected with a microscope - will be placed on the skin of MS patients where they will begin their a few weeks lasting journey into the human gut.

Constantinescu and colleagues will focus with their experiment on an intelligent trick in the fight 'parasite agains human' that evolved during thousands of years: hookworms weaken the human defence in order to not to be detected by the ever circulating guarding immune cells. That is their way of ensuring their survival inside the host. This may be good news for people with MS since their immune response gets out of control and damages healthy nerve fibres. Decreasing immune system's activity may be a way to alleviate symptoms and protect against further relapses.

- Part 1: Parasites Lend Helping Hand
- Part 2: Limits of the Worm-Therapy