The hygiene hypothesis asserts that a lack of exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms, and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic and autoimmune diseases. The hypothesis gives one explanation of the increase in allergic and autoimmune diseases since industrialization and the higher incidence of allergic diseases in developed countries.
Dr. Joel Weinstock is one advocate of this theoretical framework in explaining the increasing incidence of Crohn's disease. Late last year Nature published a piece by Weinstock titled Autoimmunity: The worm returns. If you haven't heard of the hygiene hypothesis or its relevance to Crohn's disease, I can't recommend this article enough as an introductory text. When I went to talk to my GP and my GI about doing this, I gave them each a copy of this article. Fortunately both of my doctors have been very supportive and although neither can recommend this my GI has said he will be very interested to see what happens. Intellectual curiosity; I like that.
One other piece on the hygiene hypothesis that I wanted to highlight is the obscurely titled and obscurely linked Coronado Bioscience Analyst Meeting. This is a webcast of a power point presentation given by scientists associated with Coronado Biosciences and it has an extremely good explanation of the history of the hygiene hypothesis and a description of where the research on helminthic therapy is now with the actual doctors and scientists doing the research. (Note that you have to register to watch the webcast but it's only a matter of entering an email address.)
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