Pete Dixon

Dr. William Parker says you can't know ahead of time how many helminths to infect yourself with, and taking too much can make you "very, very sick," and it can cause a lot of the same symptoms that might be trying to treat, such as anemia, mental fog, severe gastrointestinal pains, muscle aches, etc., and being infected by too many can cause an inflammatory state--exactly the state that many people considering such a therapy might be trying to mediate.

I also don't buy the "bored teenager" immune system theory he proposes--hinting that back when most people might have been infected with helminths they had better immune systems and were somehow more healthy than people without helminths are today--this, in my opinion, is utter BS. Just look at the vast increase in longevity over the last 150 years--AFTER parasitic worms were eliminated in the vast majority of the population. Harking back to some supposedly more healthy time period in human history when many people were infected with such parasites is absurd. The reason why so many people were infected in past times is because they are contagious, and back when most people had them the average life expectancy was 30-50 years!

There is a good reason why mainstream doctors don't recommend this type of therapy for ANY purposes--it can be dangerous, it's contagious, and there is very little accepted scientific evidence that hookworm infection can treat people for anything in a better way than FDA approved medications.

Last, he admits that we haven't got any placebo controlled trials on whether they effectively treat seasonal allergies, yet he still makes the claim. What type of doctor is he, one who doesn't believe in science?

More info:

Before the development of effective treatments for hookworm infections, the average life expectancy was lower due to the cumulative effects of hookworm disease and other prevalent health conditions of the time. Hookworm infections, particularly in regions with poor sanitation and malnutrition, contributed to chronic anemia, malnutrition, developmental delays in children, and reduced work capacity in adults.

Key Factors:

Widespread Infection: Hookworm was endemic in many warm, humid regions, particularly in the southeastern United States, parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Chronic Illness, Not Immediate Death: Hookworm infection alone rarely caused death, but it significantly weakened individuals, making them more susceptible to other diseases. The overall life expectancy in heavily affected regions could drop by several years due to the compounded effects of malnutrition and secondary infections.

Historical Life Expectancy:

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, life expectancy in heavily affected areas was often between 30–50 years, depending on the region and other health challenges.

These figures reflected not only hookworm but also high infant mortality rates, infectious diseases, and lack of medical care.

Effective treatments, starting with vermifuge compounds like thymol in the early 1900s and later advancements with modern anthelmintics like albendazole and mebendazole, greatly reduced the prevalence and impact of hookworm infections, contributing to improved health outcomes and life expectancy in endemic areas.

Parker didn't exactly go out of his way to sell Helminthic Therapy in this video, did he? In other videos online he's very much positive towards HT, especially Inflammatory Bowel Disease and MS.

Acetaminophen is on the list of World Health Organization's Essential Medicines, yet according to Wikipedia it also is responsible for thousands of emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Dose maketh the poison.

Most of us have seen the distended stomachs of kids carrying thousands of hookworms in their bellies. With Helminthic Therapy, self-treaters generally use 25 or fewer hookworms, sometimes only 3 or 5. That's all it takes to get the changes in the immune system that we are looking for.

Usually this level of infection is asymptomatic. Aside from a little itching at the inoculation site I've never noticed my hookworms. Protocol these days is to start with a very low dose, that 3-5 number I mentioned, and work up depending on side effects, if there are any, and improvement of symptoms of the condition being treated. 

Hookworms are only infectious if you are planning on defecating on the ground and running around barefoot, which is, incidentally, how canine hookworms are spread. Other than that, the number of hookworms doesn't grow past the number inoculated because the human hookworm lifecycle requires the larvae to mature outside the body.

People don't infect and continuously re-infect themselves for years without reason. They see results that they like and keep going, often getting full remission from conditions that were impossible for modern medicine to treat. You know my story, ulcerative colitis and celiac disease. My colitis had gotten so bad by 2018 that literally every day I was literally screaming in pain, and any accidental gluten exposures were devastating. That's all gone now, with colitis only occurring with a handful of foods that widely known to induce colitis. It's 95% better, and my celiac reactions are zero. Hookworms have been a huge win for me. I was badly sick for 13 years and I didn't need to be.

It's a shame that Helminthic Therapy is difficult for a number of reasons to prove effective in the lab, but you shouldn't discount the testimony of people whose lives have been changed by the treatment. We aren't deluded, and we aren't lying to you.

There are many different anti-inflammatory drugs that are effective in treating ulcerative colitis, have you tried any?  

At this point I am free of colitis unless I ingest alcohol, peanuts/pistachios, and as I discovered just this week, red meat.

I prefer pork and chicken over red meat anyway, and since alcoholism runs in my family losing alcohol I probably shouldn't regard as a great loss. Losing out on peanut butter sandwiches does suck though. In all, these three sensitivies are not a big deal. Not knowing about them would be.

Back in 2018 pre-hookworm colitis was a constant 3, with exposure to any meat protein ratcheting it up to a 10. That put me definitely on the radar for colon cancer.

I'm ok with the status quo and don't see the need for medication. In 2018 when I was desperate I was put on prednisone. It did absolutely nothing besides make me unable to sleep. I don't believe the mountain of Mesalamine suppositories I took in 2005/6 did anything either.

Removing the problematic foods is definitely the way to go, especially when there are so few of them. I do expect I'll find a few more though. Still very manageable.

4 hours ago, Scott Adams said:

There are many different anti-inflammatory drugs that are effective in treating ulcerative colitis, have you tried any?  

Anti-inflammatory drugs can present a raft of issues, and, unlike helminths, they are often not appropriate for long-term use.

"Treatment of moderate to severe IBD involves the use of immune modulators and/or biologics, which have several toxicities and side effects, such as predisposition to infections, cancer, and demyelinating diseases in addition to others. Helminths or helminth products are attractive therapeutic avenues given their safety profile."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10135676/

On 12/23/2024 at 1:17 PM, Scott Adams said:

I also don't buy the "bored teenager" immune system theory he proposes--

I don't buy it either. I think a much better explanation is that humans evolved with hookworms just as hookworms evolved with us. The immunoregulatory activities that hookworms conduct to avoid expulsion from the gut have over time been incorporated into how the gut immune system works as a whole, and without hookworms present the gut immune system is incomplete and dysfunctional.

A missing cog in the wheel as it were.