Michael Mosley says parasites could treat everything from eczema to cancer

Parasites could extend your life and help treat everything from dementia to cancer, according to health guru Dr Michael Mosley. The Just One Thing broadcaster and creator of the Fast 800 diet has written about his experiences being deliberately infected with a tapeworm.

Dr Mosley travelled to Kenya to swallow tapeworm eggs then filmed the results and have his blood tested. Writing in MailOnline, Dr Mosley said: "There’s been mounting evidence that worms such as hookworm and tapeworm may hold the secret to reducing chronic inflammation. This is linked to many of the diseases we associate with old age, including dementia and cancer, but also to autoimmune conditions such as asthma and ulcerative colitis."

Dr Mosley said that when he was infected, researchers monitored his blood and 'could see that the tapeworms were helping to dampen down my immune response'.

The worms lived in Dr Mosley's stomach for two months before they were killed. He wrote: "What we saw in this experiment was the immune-calming potential of parasitic worms — something that’s being harnessed by scientists to treat a range of conditions from Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis to eczema, asthma, allergies and even multiple sclerosis (MS)."

Dr Mosley said scientists in Germany had also observed that tapeworms in ants extended their lives by releasing antioxidants to slow the aging process.