“The JCU trial provides sufficient proof of concept that infection with live hookworms is safe and appears to have some sort of beneficial effects on people’s metabolic health, which will hopefully be confirmed by future clinical trials designed to confirm efficacy and explore how hookworms influence metabolism,” said Dr Paul Giacomin, AITHM Senior Research Fellow and immunologist.
Eat less vs feed a crop of worms in my guts…. Hmmmmm. I mean, it’s an efficient way of making sure you don’t absorb all the calories you consume. It would be a bummer if my worms’ eggs were infecting people who didn’t over-eat and would be harmed.
The anti-inflammatory aspect is intriguing, but there has to be better options for creating that response.
This “give you worms so you can continue to overeat without consequences” approach is far too reminiscent of the ancient Roman vomitoria. There has to be a less wasteful way to deal with obesity and its metabolic consequences.
Vomitoria existed, but they were used for people to leave a stadium, not for food to leave the stomach.
who the fuck went “yeah, ima get some dangerous parasites into my guts” how much money did they get for that
I sustained myself for 6 months on nothing but being a medical Guinea pig. Because of anonymity laws they couldn’t ask for documentation so it was one of the few gigs I could do without a work permit. I would have loved this experiment, sure as hell beat the “let’s inject pepper under your skin and give you the placebo painkiller” trial I did for three painful weeks (paid $2800 though).
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose. The worms were not dangerous at the dose being studied, as indicated by the fact people got healthier over a 2 year period.
sure but idk living parasites seem like part of an equation id rather remove
wanna go back to leech treatments? maybe tapeworms too to loose some weight?
it just seems to volatile
Leeches are still used, and are very effective in some cases. It’s ok to be grossed out by medicine. That doesn’t mean it’s outdated or shouldn’t exist.
satan! I read it looking to see how they modified the hookworms and I can’t find anything outside of saying they were farmed and lab grown. We do so much de-worming with animals and now im wondering if that is bad for them???
De-worming animals is probably still for the best. Even hookworms can be fatal to dogs, for example. And there are other worm parasites way worse than hookworms, like roundworms that can burrow through the intestines and up into the host’s heart and brain. I wouldn’t take the risk.
Hook me up!
It makes sense. Having worms has been a constant across human history, so if we need to bring dirt back to prevent allergies maybe we should all have these guys too.
