I just want to caution everyone that unless you have seen an infestation of worm eggs or larvae on a slide done from a fecal float and symptoms of a worm infestation, please - Do Not just routinely worm you dogs.

I share a theory (that is beginning to prove out) with a few other natural rearing breeders and natural health professionals that constant de-worming of our dogs may be effecting their immune systems and be a contributing factor in auto-immune disease which is currently on the rise in our companion dogs (and cats).

I believe that if you have raised your dog on a species appropriate raw diet, have had them only minimally vaccinated (or not at all), and done away with exposure to flea treatments and other chemicals , then your dog should have a good foundation upon which to build its overall health. A healthy animal can easily manage parasites - external as well as internally, i.e. intestinal worms. In fact, I believe that we need to change our mindset about parasites to this degree: why not think that a worm or four could be a fairly good thing as "my dog's immune system is now being stimulated for an appropriate response. This is helping my dog's immune system to develop better and stronger." Mind you, I am not talking about an "infestation" of worms here. if your dog's immune system is or has been compromised recently due to being ill, being vaccinated or given antibiotics or medications and you have found that she/he is loaded with internal parasites from viewing a fecal float then it is likely that they are literally sucking the life out of him/her and by all means worm with an herbal wormer, homeopathic remedy, essential oils or DE to kill the worms before they kill the dog.

Building a Healthy Immune System
I would like to have us look at building a strong, healthy immune system in our dogs in a similar way that a human parent would (should) look at building a strong learning environment for their children... if a parent protects the children from all types of stimulus, "just in case something might happen", then the child will not grow up knowing how to manage the more difficult things in life. This kind of "protection" while making the parent feel good and "responsible", is not necessarily providing the best learning environment for the children. Just like the stimulating environment you provide your child, and the parameters you do provide, with dogs, you don't just expect them to survive everything without your supervision; I just want to have you think more carefully about the decision to worm routinely and about the current worming practices for our dogs.

Fist of all, think of the ways the veterinary/pharmaceutical industry sets our puppies up to be prime candidates for auto-immune disease -

 We are encouraged to worm dams in whelp
 We are told to worm puppies at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 weeks of age, and then at 6 months, and twice a year (sometimes more) after that.

This is of course not taking into account the damage done to the immune system from vaccines so just for now, I am focusing on worming.

If my theory is correct and studies are beginning to prove it is - that there is a direct relationship between de-worming and auto-immune disease, then our dogs that are not naturally reared or cared for are the prime targets for auto-immune disease.

Think about this: as in the commercial pet food industry, it is pharmaceutical companies and veterinarians that stand to prosper here. Firstly they sell and heavily promote worming products, then if a dog comes down with an auto immune disease, they then get to sell a much more expensive life long treatment strategy, while continuing to sell worming products to the pet owner of that dog.

If we look at the raw diet scenario, that provides a clear example of how the veterinary world works. Bear with me for a bit here while I explain - the pet food company sales reps have taken over the research regarding canine nutrition using an omnivore/human approach in just about every universitiey, invariably through direct and indirect sponsorship, scholarships, and by actually writing the textbooks (let's not talk about conflict of interest here).

The veterinary students are taught how wonderful these products are, and are steered away from appreciating natural diets. As veterinarians, they then go on to practice invariably recommending commercial dog diets which invariably lead to a plethora of health ailments. The veterinarians then get paid a lot of money to treat these illnesses and conditions.

Thankfully, a small number of veterinarians are beginning to see past all of this and recommend an appropriate raw diet. On the internet, confused pet owners have sought out information not provided by their veterinarians, and found, mostly to their great surprise, that commercial pet foods were actually one of the biggest culprits of their dogs' health problems.

The resistance seen by veterinarians around the world to the new ability of pet owners to network and objectively search for information, has been enormous. In fact, on one hand while I think it has been very frustrating to see the blocked learners negatively influencing the learning processes of pet owners, I also think it's somewhat laughable. With veterinarians around the world following a code of ethics that invariably begins with the statement "first do no harm", yet here they are on a daily basis recommending inappropriate feeding practices which lead to health problems in dogs, cats, ferrets, etc.

Anyway, the good news is that due to the increasing education of pet owners, veterinarians are now finding themselves forced to start seriously looking at raw diets and changing their protocol for frequency of vaccinations.

Now, back to my point. If veterinarians still can't "get it" on the idea of raw diets being fantastic and vaccines doing more harm then good then it will probably be a huge leap for them to come to grips with worms actually being a good thing.

Several studies have been conducted on internal parasites and many will find the results surprising.

Below I have listed a few studies and the URL's to read them online. While most of these deal with humans and some mice, the surprising thing is that many of these studies are introducing the same or similar parasites/worms to cure disease, that we are totally knocking out of our animals by routinely worming them!!

Quoted from : http://www.endotext.org/diabetes/diabetes5/diabetes5.htm

With increasing public health, a "hygiene" hypothesis has been advanced, particularly directed at asthma and type 1 diabetes(60). It is hypothesized that as the environment becomes "cleaner" the normal development of the immune system is disrupted (e.g. regulatory T cell development is subnormal) resulting in increases of both presumed Th2 (asthma) and Th1 (Type 1 diabetes) mediated diseases. For instance, one review discusses decreasing pinworm infection as a potential factor.

Quoted from : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12032638&dopt=Abstract

Helminths inhibit the development of atopic disease via induction of regulatory T cells and secretion of Il-10, and pinworms inhibit diabetes development in the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse. The most successful human helminth of the western world is the pinworm. Their decline in response to improved living conditions might explain a number of features of the epidemiology of childhood atopy and diabetes.

From New York Times
By Andy Newman

For most of the Western history, the average child walked around with a bellyful of parasitic worms: pinworms, tapeworms, hookworms. Then modern civilization came along,put shoes on the children's feet, installed sewers and stopped using human waste as fertilizer, and the worms almost disappeared.

But there may be a downside to all this hygiene. Children in industrialized countries, which are relatively worm free, have a greater tendency than those in other countries to grow into adults with autoimmune disorders, in which the body makes antibodies that can cause disease such as: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease.

Maybe this is a coincidence, but, then again, maybe not. Recently, researchers at the University of Iowa gave a drink containing the eggs of helminths, a parasitic worm, to six people suffering from acute, chronic inflammatory bowel disease. Five went into remission, and the sixth improved substantially. None got sick from the worms; and all of them relapsed after the worms left their system.

"Every one of those patients is begging to be re-treated," said the lead researcher, Dr. Joel Weinstock.

Research on Potential Helminthic Therapy of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Joel Weinstock M.D., David Elliott, M.D., Robert Summers, M.D., Khurram Qadir, M.D.

Experiments conducted by Dr. David Elliott, et. al. at the University of Iowa using mice with experimental inflammatory bowel disease showed that helminthic worms protected the animals from this disease.

Digestive disease specialists at the University of Iowa are now organizing additional clinical trials to gain additional data and knowledge about this potential treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Helminths are not being used as a routine clinical treatment for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The encouraging results of the initial research must be tested and substantiated by further research. Therefore, we are only using this agent under a strictly controlled research protocol.

Developed countries have a larger by 50 times the amount of diabetes in children and gut related diseases in adults, yet the most undeveloped ones such as China and Africa have the smallest per capita of the same diseases. Can it be related to "hygiene" hypothesis? It makes sense! Another study took 50 adults that were not responding to traditional diabetes medications to control it, after induction of pinworms, more than 1/2 had normal blood sugar levels....... lets not toss out the meds and start drinking pinworms, but follow up research is certainly warranted.

So...... should we routinely worm our dogs or not? Obviously if the animal's health is being compromised, there is no doubt we should worm them to lessen the load however, I hope you will now think long and hard on treating an animal that shows nothing on a fecal float or smear and there are no symptoms present. And hopefully you will re-think routine worming. We only now starting to learn about host or symbiotic relationships in animals and we know even less the symbiotic relationship with parasites in our carnivorous companions. I am a believer that If something is not broken, then let's think hard about it and talk to our veterinarians about NOT fixing it.

This little article is something that you can take to your veterinarian and discuss if you like. Some are very willing to listen when you have documentation with you by respected researchers and they look at it as ongoing education for them. If however, your veterinarian is not interested in learning and ongoing education, I highly recommend you keep looking for new veterinarian who is and think about doing your own research and educating yourself.




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