WEDNESDAY, April 18, 2012 — How far would you go to cure your allergies? Would you let hookworms crawl into your skin? Would you drink them? (Sorry, were you eating? You might want to put down that snack.) Anyway, that's what one researcher from the United Kingdom did recently to test the effect on his own food allergy. Roughly two months after letting hookworms creep through his skin, he ate bread for the first time in years without getting sick. Here's why he did it.

Research suggesting hookworms can manipulate the immune system in a way that eliminates allergies has been growing for years. And James Logan, PhD, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) wasn't the first man of science to let hookworms infiltrate his system. Immunologist and biologist David Pritchard of the University of Nottingham in Britian did it in 2004. Pritchard was also the first to infect patients with hookworms in a controlled setting, according to The New York Times.

Jasper Lawrence tried it, too, and it put his asthma and allergy symptoms to a halt. Now he owns an online-based company called Autoimmune Therapies, through which people can purchase parasites for similar use, reports Discover magazine. Even well-known New York City baker Jim Lahey from Sullivan Street Bakery, who has a wheat sensitivity, told New York Magazine he infected himself with the parasites late last year by way of a hookworm-infested bandage.

How Hookworms Work Their Immune-System Magic

But back to Dr. Logan. As part of his debut as the tropical disease expert for a new UK television show called Embarrassing Bodies, he decided to use his own body to test the theory. For him, an allergy cure plus great television sounded like a win-win. Additionally, by swallowing a pill camera, he and other scientists would be able to watch exactly how the hookworms moved through his body. That's a first, made possible with the help of Quentin Bickle, PhD, a colleague of Logan’s at LSHTM.

It took two months for the hookworms to travel through Logan's bloodstream and into his heart and lungs. From there, the point was for Logan to cough them up and swallow them. He did, and the hookworms made their way into his intestines, where the pill camera he swallowed recorded inflammation and damage in his intestines. Additional tests showed Logan had higher levels of white blood cells called eosinophils. According to a news release from LSHTM, this is a hallmark sign of immune system response to worms.

The 60-day process — Logan eventually took an anti-worming drug to get rid of the hookworms — wasn't entirely painless. Logan felt some intestinal discomfort throughout. But the experiment did alleviate his intolerance to yeast.

"The worms release substances which can change the immune system to prevent your body from overreacting to the things that cause allergies in the first place,” Logan said in the LSHTM release.

Don't Try This at Home

Researchers have also looked into the idea of drinking the worms, straight up. But don't chase down hookworms, or spend thousands of dollars on them, just yet. They aren't an approved treatment method for allergies. Additionally, authors of a July 2011 study from the Cochrane Collaboration found insufficient evidence of effectiveness, tolerability, and cost-effectiveness of parasitic worm therapy for routine allergy treatment.

If further research pushes this concept mainstream in the future, would you try it? Or would the ick factor keep you far away? Tell us in the comment section.