In the recent issue of Mental Floss Magazine (Nov 2009) there is an article about a potential treatment for Crohn's Disease using safe worms and bacteria called Helminths that used to be prevalent in our bodies in the past. The research is/was being conducted by Dr. Weinstock of the Tufts New England Medical Center. The article claims that most of the Crohn's patients who tried the treatment went into remission!There is also an article about this research at Web MD which says that 72% of people who used the treatment went into remission. These are amazing findings, however the research appears to be several years old. (Here's another medical article about Dr. Weinstock's research.)
Since I'm curious to learn whether this research is ongoing and if anything has come from it, I wrote to Dr. Weinstock asking about the status of his research. I haven't heard back yet, but I will post it here if I do.
I find this to be an amazing sounding treatment and I'm flabbergasted as to why I haven't heard about it before. Why are we only being given the option of expensive and dangerous drug therapies or invasive surgeries? I urge all my readers to look into this research and ask your doctor about it.
Here is an article on Wikipedia about it, it is called Helminthic Therapy.
UPDATE - April 7, 2010
I received a tidbit of information about this research from the CCFC:
The helminth exposure work connects with a wide range of "toll-like receptor" and "cell signaling" research that is ongoing among a number of different scientists across Canada. -Dr. George Tolomiczenko
Oh my gosh! I just posted on this, independently!!! Yowza.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost 2 months into Helminthic Therapy for my Crohn's. I'd suggest only trying it when you are truly ready. Do your homework and learn as much about it as possible. I've started blogging about it if helps you make a more informed decision. http://lukecology.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteI haven't researched the worms much, but I can tell you there is ALOT of stuff in medical journals that has helped our family but the medical community refuses to aknowledge. I think the pharms and feds have a tight grip on the medical community. Everyone with a condition needs to get proactive and research all you can.
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