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Parasitic Worms: An Unconventional Approach to Crohn’s Disease Treatment
Looking at Kyla Fuller today, it’s hard to believe she once endured over ten years of severe illness. Now 33, Fuller exudes vitality and embraces life, working on charter boats along Australia’s tropical Queensland coast. Her remarkable recovery story highlights a potential alternative treatment for Crohn’s disease, involving the use of parasitic worms. This controversial helminth therapy is gaining attention for its purported ability to modulate the immune system and alleviate symptoms of autoimmune conditions like Crohn’s disease.
Kyla’s Battle with Crohn’s Disease
Just two years prior, Kyla’s health was drastically different. Her body was ravaged by debilitating Crohn’s disease, leading to multiple hospitalizations for excruciating bowel abscesses and abdominal pain. Unable to tolerate solid food, she relied solely on meal replacement shakes for sustenance.
Understanding Crohn’s Disease
This chronic inflammatory bowel disease, affecting hundreds of thousands in the UK alone, falls under the spectrum of autoimmune disorders. In autoimmune diseases, the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues. In Crohn’s disease, this immune response targets the digestive tract, causing inflammation, swelling, and ulceration of the gut. This results in crippling abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fatigue, and weight loss.
Limitations of Conventional Treatments
Currently, there is no known cure for Crohn’s disease. Existing treatments, including immune-suppressing medications and surgical interventions, aim to manage symptoms but often come with varying degrees of success and unpleasant side effects.
At her lowest point, Kyla weighed a mere 42kg and, like many others battling this condition, felt utterly defeated.
A Path to Remission: Helminth Therapy
Today, Kyla is symptom-free and medication-independent. Her last significant flare-up occurred in April 2024, and she has resumed a normal diet.
Remarkably, recent blood and stool tests confirm that she is in remission from Crohn’s disease.
The Unconventional Treatment: Parasitic Worms
The catalyst for this unexpected turnaround, she believes, is a controversial alternative treatment involving parasites, specifically helminths.
Every few weeks, Kyla receives a vial containing microscopic hookworm and whipworm larvae – intestinal parasitic worms – through the mail. Using a pipette, she applies the fluid to a bandage, which she then affixes to her arm for 24 hours, allowing the larvae to burrow into her skin.
While it may sound unsettling and easily dismissed, a growing body of research indicates that these helminths may offer crucial insights into treating complex conditions, particularly autoimmune diseases.
Kyla and others experimenting with helminth therapy are now sharing their experiences on social media, often garnering hundreds of thousands of views, expressing genuine belief in the treatment’s life-altering effects.
‘I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at life,’ Kyla shares. ‘I experience no pain, nausea, urgency, or blood in my stool.’
‘I’m still processing the reality of being well again. Autoimmune diseases are intricate and multifaceted, but I believe helminths could be a crucial missing element for many in managing these conditions.’
Scientific Exploration of Parasitic Therapy
Scientists are actively investigating the potential of parasites – specifically, the chemicals they release to evade the human immune system – to combat a range of diseases from allergies to cancer. This research explores how these parasitic worms might modulate the immune response and offer therapeutic benefits.
Professor Hany Elsheikha, a parasite expert at the University of Nottingham, emphasizes caution, stating, ‘I would never advise anyone to experiment with live parasites outside of clinical trials.’
‘However,’ he continues, ‘the scientific possibilities are undeniably intriguing. There is significant potential that, with rigorous research, could be transformative in treating various ailments.’
The Hygiene Hypothesis and Autoimmune Diseases
The theory supporting the use of parasites for health improvement stems from the ‘hygiene hypothesis’. This concept posits that our immune system evolved in an environment rich in diverse parasites, bacteria, and microbes. Improved sanitation over the past two centuries has drastically reduced our exposure to these microorganisms. Consequently, the theory suggests, our immune system, lacking these traditional exposures, has turned inward, leading to self-attack and overreactions to harmless substances like pollen or peanuts.
Proponents of this hypothesis argue this reduced exposure has contributed to the surge in allergies and autoimmune conditions such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes.
In the UK alone, cases of autoimmune and allergic diseases have increased threefold in recent decades.
Professor Rick Maizels, a parasitology expert from the University of Glasgow, notes, ‘The rise in autoimmune diseases coincides with decreased parasite exposure, alongside dietary shifts and socioeconomic changes.’
‘While not the sole factor, the theory of parasites playing a role holds logical merit,’ he adds.
‘We believe that to survive within the human body, these parasites produce chemicals that suppress the immune system and mitigate inflammation that could harm them.’
Evidence and Clinical Trials
So, what does the scientific evidence on helminth therapy reveal?
Research in the Netherlands comparing children in Africa who received deworming treatment to a control group found a lower allergy risk among those with parasitic infections.
A separate Argentine study observed slower disease progression in multiple sclerosis patients with parasitic infections, suggesting a potential link between parasites and autoimmune disease modulation.
A small Australian study in 2015 involving 12 coeliac disease patients – an autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten – administered hookworms. After one year, eight participants could tolerate a bowl of pasta without adverse effects.
Risks and Limitations of Helminth Therapy
However, helminth therapy carries risks, including infection, gastrointestinal distress, anemia, fatigue, and malnutrition.
Professor Elsheikha cautions that clinical trials have not consistently demonstrated statistically significant benefits for most patients. ‘While some individuals report clinical improvements in conditions like Crohn’s disease, the results are inconsistent and not universally beneficial.’
The majority of individuals pursuing helminth therapy do so without medical supervision, leaving successes and failures unrecorded.
Few clinics currently offer this treatment. The London Clinic of Nutrition, claiming to have ‘pioneered treating autoimmune disease patients with helminths,’ and Biome Restoration, a Lancaster-based supplier, did not respond to inquiries.
Kyla’s Personal Experience and Journey
Kyla initiated helminth therapy in July 2023, initially finding the idea ‘far too strange’ when suggested in a Facebook support group.
‘My initial reaction was “Absolutely not,”’ she recalls. ‘But after in-depth research, it began to make sense. It was a combination of desperation and logical reasoning that drove my decision.’
Lacking guidance from a doctor or clinic, she independently sourced hookworms online from an overseas supplier based on online recommendations, opting for the most affordable option at approximately £400 annually.
The worms arrived with application instructions and bandages, directing her to apply them to her arm for about 12 hours every few weeks.
The larvae penetrate the skin, travel via the bloodstream to the lungs, are coughed up, swallowed, and ultimately reside in the small intestine, attaching to the intestinal wall.
While they produce eggs, they do not multiply within the body as egg hatching requires excretion in human feces.
Adult worms can survive in the digestive system for months to years.
For Kyla, the therapy was not an immediate solution, with no noticeable effects for the first six months.
She continued her Crohn’s disease medications, including the immunosuppressants azathioprine and prednisone, noting her doctors’ skepticism towards the parasite therapy.
‘Initially, my symptoms slightly worsened,’ she recounts. ‘It could have been a natural disease fluctuation or my immune system reacting to the parasite infection. However, after 25 weeks, I was no longer experiencing sickness after eating simple meals.’
‘Subsequently, the post-meal cramps, typically lasting 20 to 30 minutes, shortened in duration. By week 36, both pain and nausea had significantly diminished.’
Life in Remission and Future Outlook
Today, Kyla shares her journey with over 4,000 Instagram followers as @letshealibd. She is no longer on Crohn’s medication, with occasional loose stools as her only remaining symptom.
‘I’ve never felt this healthy as an adult,’ she adds. ‘I try not to dwell on symptom recurrence – any remission period is preferable to a flare-up, especially after prolonged illness. I intend to enjoy this phase.’
‘And if medication becomes necessary again, I will consider it.’
Beyond Crohn’s: Other Applications
Others have successfully employed helminth therapy for inflammatory conditions such as acne.
Lisa Strawther, 53, a health coach in Las Vegas, reports reduced food-related flare-ups after starting worm therapy in 2019. ‘It took time to accept the idea, but desperation led me to try it, and improvement occurred within a month,’ she states.
Future of Helminth Therapy: Drug Development
Experts suggest that the future of helminth therapy lies not in using live parasites but in isolating and synthesizing their beneficial chemicals into pharmaceuticals.
Professor Maizels explains, ‘Infecting individuals with parasites is a somewhat uncontrolled approach. Our laboratory work focuses on identifying and isolating the beneficial molecules involved to develop standardized, safe, and effective medications.’
Potential in Cancer Treatment
Emerging evidence indicates that parasites may also possess anti-cancer properties, further expanding their potential therapeutic applications.
‘They could be groundbreaking,’ Professor Elsheikha concludes. ‘It’s a long-term endeavor, but one that is undoubtedly worthwhile.’