If you’ve ever experienced an infection with intestinal worms then you might have also found yourself losing weight towards the end of the condition. Now a study has revealed that this weight loss is actually part of the body’s way of fighting off the parasites.
Researchers from the University of Manchester suggested that a study of mice allowed them to realise that the body’s immune system takes control of a hormone that controls when we stop eating. Doing this triggers a response that is needed to expel the worms from the intestines. The researchers have even confirmed that this new knowledge could lead to new ways of treating people suffering with worms in their gut.
Researchers fed volunteers a meal and then measured their levels of a hormone called cholecystokinin. One of the subjects was found to have abnormally high levels. This prompted further investigation to the discovery that he had intestinal worms which he had picked up while on holiday.
Once it had been confirmed that high levels of this hormone where present in people ridding themselves of intestinal worms, a study using mice infected with a worm called Trichinella spiralis was commissioned. The researchers found that immune cells called T-cells responded to the worm infection by pushing up their levels of cholecystokinin.
This increase had the effect of lowering leptin, a hormone that influences that type of immune response given by the body. To prove that this was the case, the researchers then artificially re-added leptin to the mice, and they found that the intestinal worms managed to stay in the intestines for longer.
So doctors can now put to bed the myth that losing weight during an infection simply makes your immune system weaker and less able to fight it off. In fact the weight loss is a natural part of the body’s ability to fight the infection.
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