A recent study published in Science, tells us about how parasite infections may actually increase fertility in women. In this study, 986 Bolivian women were studied for a period of 9 years, looking at the link between intestinal parasites and the number of children a woman had, as well as the length of time between each pregnancy.
It was found that women infected with certain parasites, roundworms, in particular had more children and shorter length between pregnancies than those women who were not infected. Infection with roundworms is associated with very mild symptoms,generally. Hookworms, on the other hand, tend to cause much more internal damage and nutritional depletion to its host. It was shown that women with hookworm infections had less children and longer time between pregnancies.
Infection with a mild parasite, such as a roundworm, causes many similar immune responses that occur during pregnancy. In pregnancy, the fetus is often seen by the mother's body as a foreign invader, thus causing regulatory T cells to be stimulated, which oddly enough, decreases immune response and inflammation, allowing the fetus, or parasite, to thrive. Not only that, but similar to a human fetus, parasites feed off of the host for nutrients. It is hypothesized that because of the similarity in immune response, that roundworm infection can actually prepare the woman's body for pregnancy. Although many doctors would never prescribe their patients a parasite for infertility, it may be a breakthrough study for future infertility treatment!
Read more at http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/11/intestinal-worms-may-help-women-get-pregnant-more-often !
This idea is very different yet fascinating, I would be interested to see if they looked into any other factors that could of had a correlation to increased fertility. Also if they were to rid the parasites of those being studied would their fertility decrease? They did the study on a group of women who are known to be fertile in general so maybe testing women from a different background could lead to more definitive results. This would be an interesting change in the direction for infertility treatments, but a fascinating one at that. Interested to see where this leads to.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering more so if they’ve tried this in people particularly who are trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization. Can a parasite increase the likelihood of the embryo adhering to the uterus? I understand that women can get OHSS, which is ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome. This can be caused from the medications they’re taking and result in them losing the pregnancy. But maybe if they have a parasite in them before they will have a better reaction to the medications and have a smooth transition into pregnancy.
ReplyDeletehttp://americanpregnancy.org/infertility/in-vitro-fertilization/
I believe that facets of this study may not only be able to revolutionize our treatments for infertility, but in our search for a treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a debilitating autoimmune disease that affects many women who are of childbearing age, however instead of worsening the disease, pregnancy has been shown to ameliorate the relapses and the progression of women with relapse-remitting MS to irreversible MS. The most common theory is that the mother's immune system response is what causes the amelioration of the disease, and if this study is correct in stating that the round worm causes similar immune responses then they could possibly be used in the effective treatment of MS. Furthermore, it has shown that MS tends to worsen after a mother stops breastfeeding, which means that a more permanent or longer lasting immune response from the mother to a parasite could provide longer lasting relief as well as provide relief to women unable to bear children. However, other theories have suggested that the relief could be provided by immuno-supressive properties provided by the fetus or hormonal changes within the mother, so further studies would be needed to test this theory, although the idea of giving immuno-compromised patients a parasite does not seem like the healthiest of ideas.
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