Would YOU swallow a glassful of worms to banish your allergies?

‘ T HEY send you a test tube containing hookworm larvae. You put the liquid onto gauze and tape it to your arm. A few days later you can see the spots where the worms have burrowed into your body.’

Graham, a 49-year- old builder from Southampton, is describing a radical and controversial new treatment he’s been using to treat his severe eczema.

Graham has suffered with severe intolerances to many foods, including cereals, yeast, some fruit and veg, flavourings, nuts and dairy, since he was eight. They can cause his throat to swell and trigger eczema and hives.

At times, the only places free of eczema were the palms of his hands and soles of his feet. In his 30s, he was hospitalised for a week when the eczema became infected.

The only conventional treatments are powerful steroids. ‘They are nasty stuff, you can’t stay on them for long,’ he says. ‘And when you’ve got eczema all over your body, topical creams only work so far.’

He tried to avoid the foods that brought on the reactions, but there were so many he found it difficult to keep them out of his diet while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Two years ago, Graham saw an article about an unusual new treatment where patients with severe eczema and other common autoimmune disorders were infecting themselves with live worms, by drinking a liquid full of worm eggs, or by rubbing live larvae onto their skin.

The theory is the larvae make their way to the gut where they mature and begin to release chemicals that supress the immune system — in Graham’s case, preventing it from overreacting to certain foods.

Graham bought a £100 dose of worms online then applied it to his skin. ‘Within the first three months, my symptoms had disappeared — I stopped reacting to foods that had made me ill. I could suddenly eat bread, bananas and raw salad.’ A year later he took a second dose. ‘Now I have muesli with nuts and yoghurt twice a week, and lasagne with no problems. I haven’t used steroids, and haven’t had any eczema, for two years.’

The idea of growing a colony of worms inside you may sound unappetising, but for thousands of people such as Graham, it becomes an annual, or even weekly task they perform.

So- CALLED worm therapy has not been proven by large studies yet and most doctors remain sceptical about its claims.

But the companies pioneering it here in the UK and abroad say it can help treat diseases from eczema and food intolerances to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and even multiple sclerosis (MS) and some symptoms of autism.

Until relatively recently, we all carried worms in our gut. But in the UK and other developed countries they are now largely eradicated thanks to better sanitation and water treatment.

However, a number of scientists believe that the loss of these parasites may have led to another problem: the rise in allergies and autoimmune disorders.

‘Many people have been trying to figure out why such disorders were becoming so prevalent in the Western world, but remained rare in developing countries,’ says Joel Weinstock, a professor of medicine at Tufts Medical centre in the U. S, and one of the leading researchers in this area.

But rather than something we’re exposed to, he wondered if it was something we lack — specifically whether the parasites once in the gut could be affecting our immune systems — ‘leading us to become more vulnerable to disease’.

In 2004 Professor Weinstock tested the theory in mice with colitis, a severe inflammation of the bowel, and the condition significantly improved in those that ingested roundworm larvae.

The following year he tested the idea in humans with ulcerative colitis, a form of IBD. In a study published in the journal Gastroenterology, 54 patients were given a drink containing pig whipworm eggs, or a placebo. Those who received the worms had a 43 per cent improvement in their symptoms compared with 17 per cent in the placebo group.

And a study in 29 people with crohn’s disease given the eggs every three weeks found almost three-quarters saw symptoms disappear, according to the journal Gut. So what could explain this?

According to Professor Weinstock, and others in the field, the human body has evolved to launch an attack against worms: this triggers a large amount of inflammation. Worms have subsequently developed specific methods of dampening this immune response.

‘But in the modern world, we suddenly yanked these worms out of us,’ says Professor Weinstock. So the immune system pathways are no longer suppressed, he says, and can be triggered by other substances erroneously.

There is evidence to support this theory. Immune cells called T-cells recognise and attack foreign invaders in the body. If they are too active, they can induce immune disorders. Worms in the body activate another immune cell, which shuts down this T-cell response. Worms also interact with our microbiome — all the bacteria and viruses in the body, and influence their survival.

We know the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut can affect many diseases. A lack of worms may have made our immune systems unbalanced and exposed to disease.

This leaves some people vulnerable to inflammatory damage and autoimmune diseases, where the body recognises healthy cells as dangerous. It’s not known why, though genes are likely to be involved. The thinking behind the worm therapies is that reintroducing certain worms can fix an overactive immune system.

Yet despite a number of animal and small human studies showing promise, progress in this area has been limited. As yet, no large, double-blind placebo- controlled study — the gold-standard, where the treatment is compared with a dummy treatment — has produced evidence that any worm therapy works. It’s likely that certain worms might work best against certain diseases, but there are currently no studies that have compared worms like for like against specific diseases.

In the unregulated world of worm therapy, most people buy the treatment on an online black market. Some have learned how to cultivate their own parasites.

More than 2,000 people from around the world buy their worms legitimately from Biome Restoration, based in lancashire.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency says it can sell the worms as long as it does not make specific medical claims.

Instead, the company just says that the worms help ‘ maintain good health’. ‘There is no regulatory category for us to apply for yet,’ says Judith chinitz, co- founder of Biome Restoration. ‘This coming January, the EU is supposed to be releasing new Novel Food regulations that will include insects and things derived from insects. We hope to apply for this because we want to legitimise [this therapy].’

The company specialises in rodent tapeworms, which are delivered in a small vial of clear liquid containing between 2,000 and 7,000 larvae — seen floating in the liquid as tiny little specks.

The worms cannot reach full maturity in the human gut and are thought to survive for around two weeks. After this, they are broken down and excreted. This is why doses must be topped up regularly to maintain any effect.

Judith chinitz takes the worm product for her rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and allergies, and also gives it to her son Alex, 23, who has a severe form of autism. She’s done this for many years.

‘I didn’t immediately see any difference,’ she says. ‘But after 12 weeks Alex’s behaviour improved: he was more social, didn’t spend so much time by himself and his repetitive behaviours eased off.’

There are no placebo-controlled trials that show worms can help with autism, or their longterm impact.

Worm therapy is also being used to help with MS. In 2008 in a study led by John Fleming, a professor of neurology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, five patients infected themselves every two weeks with 2,500 pig whipworm eggs. The results were astonishing.

AFTER three months, the number of lesions on their myelin sheath — the fatty protective layer that surrounds nerves—– was significantly reduced. These lesions prevent the nerves from sending electrical messages around the brain, leading to the disease symptoms.

Two months after the patients stopped taking the eggs, the lesions returned. Again, this was not a placebo-controlled study.

And the worm therapy is not risk- free. Some trials show it causes severe gastrointestinal discomfort. Professor Weinstock issues a another word of caution: ‘Are all worms created equal? The answer is no. So maybe some worms are beneficial, maybe some could be harmful. We need more careful experimentation.’

And experts advise against buying worms online because they have never faced the scrutiny or assessment a medical treatment needs. Professor Weinstock adds it’s impossible to know if you’re getting the species you are promised. ‘We don’t even know what the ideal number or species is yet.’

He says anyone thinking about self-treating should only do so with the oversight of a doctor.

Advice reiterated by Gemma cass, an NHS doctor and clinical scientist from Bristol. ‘I appreciate how difficult it is for patients who have debilitating chronic conditions in whom treatment has failed, but I would advise anybody wishing to undergo this therapy to seek the advice of a doctor.’

These words of warning will not dissuade everyone. Builder Graham has just ordered his third batch of hookworms: ‘It’s not the perfect solution,’ he says. ‘But if you’re sick enough, you’ll do it.’