Jakarta, the worms can live in the human body and takes nutrients from the body. This incident is referred to as worms and harm the body, can even result in death. However, a recent study found that the worm could be useful to treat lung disease and heal wounds.
Parasitic worms in the intestine has infected more than one billion people around the world and kill hundreds of millions of people per year. However, worms can also trigger the performance of an essential element in the immune system responsible for repairing damaged tissue and reduces inflammation.
"This live worms can be used someday to treat serious lung injury caused by respiratory infections, like pneumonia," said the researcher, William Gause of the New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey
Gause and colleagues studied worms in rodents called Nippostrongylus brasiliensis. This worm is similar to the hookworm that infects more than 700 million people, mainly in developing countries. The life cycle of N. brasiliensis worms are similar to mine.
Worm entered the host's body through the skin, usually on foot, or make contact with the worm larvae in the feces contained in the mud or water. Larvae flow in the circulatory system to the lungs, through trachea or throat, swallowed in the esophagus and then go from the stomach into the small intestine, where the larvae grow into worms and deploy millions of eggs.
Severe organ damage induced this worm is the lung. In the process of evolution, the human body has developed a unique way to minimize the damage done by the hookworm and the like.
Tim Gause found in the immune system proteins called cytokines. This protein helps expel intestinal worms in the lungs of mice and also trigger healing.
Cytokinins to mobilize the various elements of the immune system to reduce inflammation, cleanse contagious germs, while stimulating protein and other growth factors in order to quickly fix the lung tissue is damaged.
In a research report published journal Nature Medicine, Gause said that what happened to the bodies of mice caused by N. brasiliensis can also occur in humans exposed to parasitic worms. If so, these worms can be more effective in triggering the immune response to heal the body from the inside as compared with drugs.
"Worms enhance wound healing response, preventing harmful inflammation, and wound repair. This mechanism may be the result of evolution in the host's body to reduce the harmful effects of tissue damage which is quite dangerous due to multicellular parasites that can migrate through vital organs. In this , parasites can be used to treat acute lung injury, "Gause said as quoted by LiveScience, Monday (16/01/2012).
Use of parasitic worms or worms to treat immune disorders and so-called worm therapy is not new. Research on the use of live worms to treat several inflammatory and autoimmune disorders such as Crohn's disease are underway.
This study used a non-human parasites, which most often is a worm Trichuris suis, a kind of whip worms in pigs.
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