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Cases of asthma and allergies are on the rise, especially in developed countries. An experimental approach to treatment is not for the squeamish.
It's springtime, and people are sneezing. More Americans are suffering from allergies, asthma and other immune system disorders. The trend is seen in industrialized countries around the world, and experts are worried.
Dr. Homer Boushey, allergy expert at the University of California San Francisco said, "There's a lot of concern that something that we're doing differently from the way humans did it for a very long time is causing this really dramatic increase in allergies and asthma over the last 50 to 60 years."
So what's different? Some people point to the hygiene hypothesis, which says that we've become too clean for our own good.
Is there something about getting down and dirty early in life when we are kids that's beneficial to a developing immune system?
"Being outdoors and in the dirt is a good thing," Dr. Boushey said. He says for the proof, look no further than the human body. We're jam-packed with microbes.
"There are more bacterial cells in us than there are 'us' cells in us," he said.
He says co-existing with these microscopic creatures may help maintain a healthy immune system.
With that in mind, a growing number of Americans are choosing to co-exist with creatures often found in the human gut and dirt.
Jasper Lawrence said, "I got infected in the last week of January, 2006." The creatures? Hookworms.
"It's not a fringe therapy. What it is, is an experimental scientific therapy," he explained.
Lawrence, co-founder of Autoimmune Therapies, says severe allergies and asthma wrecked his life. Medications offered little benefit and caused tremendous weight gain. A documentary hooked him on trying hookworms for a cure. He soon found himself in Cameroon, Africa.
He walked barefoot across open-air latrines in order to get infected with hookworms. "When a person first gets infected, they get an itch at the site where they first enter the skin," Lawrence said. "You may cough and feel fatigued and experience a little diarrhea."
But once home, he says his allergies and asthma disappeared. Now the Silicon Valley entrepreneur is helping others by incubating the worms in his gut.
"Right now I'm hosting about 75 hookworms," he said.
One beneficiary is 36-year-old Todd Troutman, who before using hookworms suffered from severe allergies and asthma.
"Completely cured," he said. "That was the most successful aspect of it. I have no asthma issues at all."
Today, Troutman is a true believer and can handle the reactions of friends and family.
"People are almost always horrified. I've had people take two or three steps backwards like they're gonna somehow be infected," he said.
Boushey explained one theory of how hookworms may help. "So maybe the presence of hookworms leads to signals that our body detects that damp down the immune response that we see in these situations. So the presence of hookworms could be associated with suppression of immune-allergic kind of responses - quite a plausible theory," he said.
However, Dr. Boushey would like to see rigorous clinical trials.
"Of course, ideally, I'd like to see us figure out what part of the hookworm is responsible for this benefit, so we can develop a therapy we can give without actually have to infect people with a parasite that, after all, does cause problems."
Like anemia. Troutman says he's already got all the proof he needs. "I have absolutely no regrets at all," he said.
Hookworms can live in the human gut for at least five years, where they can lay eggs. This therapy is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
