Could tiny worm hold the key to treating arthritis?

A tiny worm could help bring relief to millions of chronic arthritis sufferers, scientists claim.

A study has found that the immune response triggered by infection with a parasite called n. brasiliensis eases rheumatoid arthritis.

Experiments with the parasite could bring hope of new treatments for people with the debilitating condition, and cut the need for expensive hip and knee replacements.

One of the most common forms of the disease, rheumatoid arthritis – which affects around 40,000 Britons – occurs when the immune system attacks the joints by mistake. the wrists, fingers, toes, ankles and knees are particularly susceptible.

Current drugs do not work for everyone, and one in three sufferers give up work within ten years of diagnosis.

those whose joints have been very badly damaged can undergo hip or knee replacements. However this involves a major operation, as well as months of rehabilitation, and the new joints have a limited lifespan. When the German researchers infected arthritis-stricken mice with the worm, the creatures’ health improved. inflammation was cut and damage to cartilage reduced, the journal nature Communications reports.

it is thought that the immune response triggered by the worm – which normally lives in rats’ stomachs – counteracts the rogue immune response behind the disease. Parasitic worms have already been used to successfully treat other illnesses in which the immune system turns on the body, including Crohn’s disease.

the research is at an early stage, but in future scientists might be able to create a drug that has the same calming effect on the joints as being infected by the worm.

Aline Bozec, of Erlangen University Hospital, said early treatment could be particularly effective. ‘Rheumatoid arthritis is the paradigm of a chronic disease which hardly resolves and usually accompanies patients during their entire life,’ she said.

‘We show that n. brasiliensis infection alleviated disease. Activation of [this immune response] in both early and established disease may emerge as a new strategy to treat arthritis.’

‘Normally lives in rats’ stomachs’