Using parasites to fight autoimmune diseases

[Nielk]

http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/using-parasites-to-fight-autoimmune-diseases/

Israeli expert is experimenting with intestinal parasites to fight conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.

t is common to make fun of men for acting like “big babies” when they’re even mildly sick. According to Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, who heads the Shlomo and Pola Zabludowicz Center of Autoimmune Diseases (eng.sheba.co.il/567/329.htm) in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, there is a physiological basis for this behavior.

Indeed, says the world-renowned Israeli autoimmunologist, prolific author and founder and editor of the Israel Medical Association Journal, Autoimmunity Reviews and J Autoimmunity: “Women are literally the stronger gender, with a better immune system. Not only do they outlive men, but when a woman has a cold, she goes about her business, and when a man has one, he takes to his bed and cries for a cup of tea.”

But this stronger immune system is also why, explains Shoenfeld, “with a few exceptions, autoimmune diseases attack women more than men, and usually at childbearing ages.”

........

Helpful parasites

In order to survive and thrive, helminths secret substances that suppress the host’s immune system.

“Wherever helminths thrive, autoimmune diseases are virtually non-existent,” Shoenfeld says. “We know from epidemiological studies that there is a connection between increased hygiene and increased autoimmune diseases and allergies.”

He relates that the Italian island of Sardinia was rife with malaria yet absent of autoimmune disease – until 1946, when the area was sprayed with DDT. Malaria was indeed curbed as a result, but the island’s population developed the highest incidence of multiple sclerosis in the world.

Hygiene theorists tried using helminths to treat autoimmune disease, having their subjects ingest the long parasites like spaghetti. The experiments were successful but “a bit disgusting,” says Shoenfeld. “So the next trial was to ingest helminth eggs — which are so tiny that they can’t be seen by the naked eye — and let them hatch in the patient.”

The problem is that the parasites are emitted in bodily waste, causing a public-health issue. The solution was to use the eggs of a pig helminth, which do not hatch in humans, or if they do, they die very quickly.

This method, approved by medical authorities, is currently sold over the counter via the Internet. And many patients who have tried it report beneficial effects.

Taking this a step farther, Shoenfeld and his team set out to mimic the helminth secretions that suppress a host’s immune system. The compound they patented, called TCP, is the basis of a startup they have established. They are seeking investors or pharmaceutical companies to mass produce the compound.

TCP is a mixture of two existing molecules in the body – phosphorylcholine, a non-immunogenic substance, and tuftsin, which is produced in the spleen and helps suppress the immune system. When introduced to mice in the lab at the center, via injection and orally, TCP completely eradicated lupus, colitis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Shoenfeld’s team is now expanding experimentation with TCP – which he believes can relieve almost all autoimmune diseases cheaply and without side effects — to tackle conditions such as hair loss and psoriasis. They are also starting a study on the connection between allergies and autoimmune disease.

 

[Bob]

When introduced to mice in the lab at the center, via injection and orally, TCP completely eradicated lupus, colitis and rheumatoid arthritis.

If it does that in humans, then they'll have a block-buster drug on their hands.
But I've just been reading that drugs don't have a great success rate for translating from mouse model to human.
I think (i can't rely on my memory) I read that there's 5% success rate of getting drugs through human trials and the statutory approval process.

 

[drob31]

Anyone want a bowl of spaghetti? I'm cookin'.

 

[Nielk]

Anyone want a bowl of spaghetti? I'm cookin'.

 

[Nielk]

Indeed, says the world-renowned Israeli autoimmunologist, prolific author and founder and editor of the Israel Medical Association Journal, Autoimmunity Reviews and J Autoimmunity: “Women are literally the stronger gender, with a better immune system. Not only do they outlive men, but when a woman has a cold, she goes about her business, and when a man has one, he takes to his bed and cries for a cup of tea.”

But this stronger immune system is also why, explains Shoenfeld, “with a few exceptions, autoimmune diseases attack women more than men, and usually at childbearing ages.”

I thought that this was an interesting explanation of why it is mostly women who suffer from autoimmune disease. Could it be the same reason that they suffer from ME?

 

[drob31]

It's funny, but lately all of the biggest treatment options have to do with spaghetti parasites and oral fecal supplements/fecal matter transplants.

 

[Gondwanaland]

Someone once called my attention to this book (I haven't read it yet):

An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases

From asthma to Crohn’s disease, everyone knows someone who suffers from an allergic or autoimmune disorder. And if it appears that the prevalence of these maladies has increased recently, that’s because it has—to levels never before seen in human history. These days no fewer than one in five—and likely more—Americans suffers from one of these ailments. We seem newly, and bafflingly, vulnerable to immune system malfunction. Why? One possibility is that we have systematically cleaned ourselves to illness; this belief challenges deeply entrenched notions about the value of societal hygiene and the harmful nature of microbes. Yet scientists investigating the rampant immune dysfunction in the developed world have inevitably arrived at this conclusion. To address this global “epidemic of absence,” they must restore the human ecosystem.