Australian researchers use hookworms to reduce symptoms of celiac disease

Australian researchers have achieved groundbreaking results in a clinical trial using hookworms to reduce the symptoms of celiac disease.

The results are also good news for sufferers of other inflammatory conditions such as asthma and Crohn's disease.

In the small trial run over a year, 12 participants were each experimentally infected with 20 Necator americanus (hookworm) larvae.

They were then given gradually increasing doses of gluten - beginning with just one-tenth of a gram per day (the equivalent of less than a one-inch segment of spaghetti) and increasing in two further stages to a final daily dose of three grams (75 spaghetti straws).

"By the end of the trial, with worms onboard, the trial subjects were eating the equivalent of a medium-sized bowl of spaghetti, with no ill effects," James Cook University (JCU) immunologist Paul Giacomin said.

"That's a meal that would usually trigger a debilitating inflammatory response, leaving a celiac patient suffering symptoms like diarrhea, cramps and vomiting."

Australian researchers use hookworms to reduce symptoms of celiac disease