Inflammatory bowel disease
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an autoimmune disease involving the inflammation of mucus. Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are both types of IBD. In the medical journal GUT, Dr. Moreels et al. describe their experiments on induced colitis in rats. They found that infecting the rats with the parasitic worm Schistosoma mansoni resulted in alleviated colitis effects. According to Dr. Weinstock, human patients of UC or CD improve when infected with the parasitic worm whipworm.