Your Friendly Neighborhood Hookworms
5/15/202646 min
For most of human history, people went about their daily lives with a worm or two (or fifty) in their guts. Only in the past century, with pharmaceuticals and sanitation practices, have we made significant strides towards deworming the whole of humanity. And that’s typically been thought of as a good thing, because having too many worms in your body can–quite literally–suck the life out of you.
But is it possible to have… too few worms? Science wonders if deworming ourselves has actually led to an increase in certain chronic diseases. On this episode, we dive into Necator americanus, a.k.a. the American Hookworm, and its mysterious relationship with each of us.
We trace the hookworm’s 118-year journey from a demonized economic depressant, to its use as a desperate D.I.Y. immunosuppressant, to its potential as a medical treatment for a number of chronic diseases, everything from asthma to MS.
We’re bringing back two stories from our 2009 episode Parasites plus new research on hookworms and autoimmune diseases, reported by Molly Webster
Special thanks to Ethan Hein for the use of his remix of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. Plus, Doris Pierce, and Dan and Alice Hadley.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Pat Walters and Molly Webster
with help from - {{wREPORTERS}}
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Rebecca Rand
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Arianne Wack
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Articles -
Effect of experimental hookworm infection on insulin resistance in people at risk of type 2 diabetes (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37495576/) by Giacomin PR et al. Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 26
Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!
Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.
Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsLatif Nasser· Host0:02
Hey, I'm Latif Nasser.
Molly Webster· Host0:03
Hi, I'm Molly Webster, and this is Radiolab.
Latif Nasser· Host0:06
And what are we doing today, Molly?
Molly Webster· Host0:08
Okay. Well, Latif, remember back in 2009- Mm-hmm ... before you and I both worked at the show, there was an episode called Parasites.
Latif Nasser· Host0:17
Oh my God, love that episode.
Molly Webster· Host0:19
It is really one of my favorites, and in that episode we talk about this tiny, maybe creepy little worm called a hookworm.
Latif Nasser· Host0:28
That's right.
Molly Webster· Host0:28
You remember it.
Latif Nasser· Host0:29
Yeah. I mean, it like, it hooked into my brain. Like, the- The hookworm- There, it has that- ...
Molly Webster· Host0:33
hooked into your brain.
Latif Nasser· Host0:33
It's the story of that one guy, and then there's the final scene where he's walking through the- Oh, wait.
Molly Webster· Host0:38
Okay, wait, wait, wait. You don't actually have to tell it. [laughs] Don't, don't say what the final scene is- Okay ... is because what we're gonna do here is I'm gonna play, um, this, the hookworm's chunk of that episode.
Latif Nasser· Host0:49
Oh, okay.
Molly Webster· Host0:50
And then I have an update, a 20-year-later hookworm and human medical update that- VH1 Behind the Music, where is the hookworm now? [laughs] Yes. Where is the hookworm and where is the human?
Latif Nasser· Host1:05
Okay, great.
Molly Webster· Host1:05
It, this whole episode, it introduced this idea that this thing that we think is, like, the biggest, scariest, grossest pest of all time- Yeah ... maybe they're not as gross as you think.
Latif Nasser· Host1:18
Yeah, yeah.
Molly Webster· Host1:18
And now, 20 years later, people are saying maybe they're really not as gross as you think.
Latif Nasser· Host1:25
Love it.
Molly Webster· Host1:25
And there's just, like, all this cool new research about hookworms in the