Hookworms offer New Treatment Hope for MS Sufferers

Aug 14, 2020 by CenTrial



Researchers have discovered that infecting multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with a safe dose of the hookworm parasite helped to keep their immune systems under control.

MS is an incurable autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord and manifests as problems with vision problems, leg or arm movement, and balance.

By dosing patients with hookworms, the study hoped to find that the body's overactive immune system was quieted and that the symptoms and relapse episodes of MS were reduced.

Half of the 71 trial participants received a low dose of 25 microscopic larvae on a band-aid applied to their arm, the other half received a placebo. All the patients were then scanned on a regular basis over the next nine months.

The scientists found that more than half the patients on hookworm had no new lesions and that they had an increase in T cells which help to keep the immune system under control.

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