One reason I believe we are vastly bacteria-deprived (and thus greatly benefit from fermented foods) is the efficacy of hookworm therapy: Hookworm parasites can reduce autoimmune diseases. Hookworms, like fermented foods, stimulate the immune system in a chronic, harmless, low-level way. Here is a good introduction to the subject:
Musician Scott Richards and artist Debora Wade are two Bay Area patients on the hookworm treatment. Richards and Wade both suffer from an inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn’s. When faced with using a parasite as therapy, both patients felt they had nothing to lose. . . . Both Richards and Wade say they didn’t have to wait long to feel relief. Richards [described] waking up and the pain suddenly gone. For Wade, she needed to be reinfected, but today said she can eat foods that patients with Crohn’s could never eat: pizza & Thai food for example.
I was a subject of the news piece you link to and the founder of the first company offering helminthic therapy. Strictly speaking it is not worm therapy, helminthic therapy is the correct term. Your readers searching using the correct term will find much more information.
thanks,
Jasper Lawrence
oh, and if you like self-experimentation you will like my description of infecting myself with hookworm to put my asthma into remission by going to Cameroon.
https://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971
and a more recent article I wrote there advocating the therapeutic use of benign organisms.
https://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/16/3408/66053
I’m very afraid about crohn’s disease. I have some symtoms in abdominal pain, often in the lower right area, and diarrhea. Should I go to see the doctor? Please help.
If you don’t know if you have Crohn’s obviously you should ask a doctor.
For those who have Crohns here is a post about the efficacy of the treatment I wrote after reading dozens of patient blogs.
https://www.hookwormdiary.com/2011/12/29/a-cure-for-crohns-disease-and-ulcerative-colitis/
Worm Therapy, what about using SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) with Crohn’s? Lot easier than infecting yourself with worms.