Asthma is on the rise every year in the American population and the need for new treatments led to a new study that found out that the hookworm could help to treat asthma and other autoimmune diseases.
Hookworms are intestinal parasites that are known to cause infections across the world. Most people who are infected with the hookworm have no symptoms, while some people may experience abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, fatigue and loss of appetite and many other symptoms.
But according to the researchers from James Cook University (JCU), hookworms may not be all that bad. They reveal how a protein that is secreted by hookworms -- anti-inflammatory protein 2 (AIP-2) curbed away inflammation in a mouse model of asthma. The study showed that the protein may be effective for a lot of inflammatory conditions including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn's disease.
"After our initial success with IBD, asthma was our next logical goal," says Dr. Navarro. "Although IBD and asthma are very different conditions, what they have in common is a defect in the regulation of the immune system, which results in overwhelming inflammatory processes."
