Hookworms – latest information
To what extent would you go to prove a point? Well, Nobel Prize winners in Medicine for 2005 Barry Marshall and Robbin Warren drank a concoction of bacteria causing stomach ulcers to prove to the scientific world that it was indeed a bacteria called Helicobacter which caused stomach ulcers and not the level of stress that you had in your life which resulted in it. And as if to have set a trend in live human testing, Dr Speers and his colleague did the same with hookworms. They wanted to see how the body reacted to an hookworm infection and so they placed hookworms on their skin – which then migrated into the lungs and then into their stomach – they also swallowed a little pill camera to monitor the worm’s activity and the body’s responses to the hookworm. What they discovered was that hookworms actually results in an allergic reaction in the body which is similar to that of asthma and other allergic conditions. All this in their pursuit of a better understanding of Crohn’s disease. In the meantime however, whilst a simple pill would’ve eradicated the hookworm from their system, the 2 doctors have reportedly said that they’ve grown rather fond of their parasites and have opted to ‘keep’ them – what some people will do for their science and to prove a point will never cease to amaze me…