Hygiene Hypothesis & parasites as beneficial
Okay...here are some sources for the Hygiene Hypothesis:
A quick read:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...orm05.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/05/ixhome.html
Summary of another:
From New York Times By Andy Newman
For most of the Western history, the average child walked around with a bellyful of parasitic worms: pinworms, tapeworms, hookworms. Then modern civilization came along,put shoes on the children's feet, installed sewers and stopped using human waste as fertilizer, and the worms almost disappeared.
But there may be a downside to all this hygiene. Children in industrialized countries, which are relatively worm free, have a greater tendency than those in other countries to grow into adults with autoimmune disorders, in which the body makes antibodies that can cause disease: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease.
Maybe this is a coincidence, but maybe not. Recently, researchers at the University of Iowa gave a drink containing the eggs of helminths, a parasitic worm, to six people suffering from acute, chronic inflammatory bowel disease. Five went into remission, and the sixth improved substantially.
None got sick from the worms; all relapsed after the worms left their system. "Every one of those patients is begging to be re-treated," said the lead researcher, Dr. Joel Weinstock.
Research on Potential Helminthic Therapy of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Joel Weinstock M.D., David Elliott, M.D., Robert Summers, M.D., Khurram Qadir, M.D.
Experiments conducted by Dr. David Elliott, et al at the University of Iowa using mice with experimental inflammatory bowel disease showed that helminthic worms protected the animals from this disease.
Digestive disease specialists at the University of Iowa are now organizing additional clinical trials to gain additional data and knowledge about this potential treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Helminths are not being used as a routine clinical treatment for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The encouraging results of the initial research must be tested and substantiated by further research. Therefore, we are only using this agent under a strictly controlled research protocol.
Developed countries have a larger by 50 times the amount of diabetes in children and gut related diseases in adults, yet the most undeveloped ones such as China and Africa have the smallest per capita of the same diseases. Can it be related to "hygiene" hypothesis? It makes sense! Another study took 50 adults that were not responding to traditional diabetes medications to control it, after induction of pinworms, more than 1/2 had normal blood sugar levels....... lets not toss out the meds and start drinking pinworms, but follow up research is certainly warranted.
So...... do we treat or not, obviously if the animal's health is being compromised, there is no doubt we should, but I think we all need to think real hard on treating an animal that shows something on a fecal float or smear when there are no other symptoms present. We know so little about host or symbiotic relationships in animals and even less in bearded dragons.. if its not broken, lets think hard about it and talk to our vets about NOT fixing it. This is something that you can take to your vet and discuss, most I have found are very willing to listen if you have documentation with you by respected researchers and it is an ongoing education for them.
More:
How to cure your asthma or hayfever using hookworm - a practical guide || kuro5hin.org
Quoted from :
Endotext.com - Diabetes, Pathogenesis of Type 1A Diabetes
With increasing public health, a "hygiene" hypothesis has been advanced, particularly directed at asthma and type 1 diabetes(60). It is hypothesized that as the environment becomes "cleaner" the normal development of the immune system is disrupted (e.g. regulatory T cell development is subnormal) resulting in increases of both presumed Th2 (asthma) and Th1 (Type 1 diabetes) mediated diseases. For instance, one review discusses decreasing pinworm infection as a potential factor.
Quoted from :
A missing link in the hygiene hypothesis? [Diabetologia. 2002] - PubMed Result
Helminths inhibit the development of atopic disease via induction of regulatory T cells and secretion of Il-10, and pinworms inhibit diabetes development in the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse. The most successful human helminth of the western world is the pinworm. Their decline in response to improved living conditions might explain a number of features of the epidemiology of childhood atopy and diabetes.