›› 2009, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (3): 17-279.

• 综述 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Are Parasitic Infections Advantageous to Humans?

YIN Wei-dong1, YANG Yi-qing1, ZHANG Jin-shun2 *   

  1. 1 Department of Clinical Laboratory at Laboratory Medicine Faculty, Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou 075000, China； 2 Department of Parasitology, Hebei North University, Zhangjiakou 075000, China
  • Received:1900-01-01 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2009-06-30 Published:2009-06-30
  • Contact: ZHANG Jin-shun

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Abstract:

Humans are negatively affected by parasitic infection. However, recent researches

revealed that to some extent, parasitic infections are advantageous to humans. Parasitic infections

are found to benefit patients of inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes mellitus, autoimmune

disease and allergic disorder. Furthermore, they promoted studies on pathogenesis of these

diseases, and therefore on safe and effective therapeutic strategy.

In addition, by taking the Caenorhabditis elegans as model organism,

researchers have made a breakthrough in the area of life science, including signal transduction, functional genomics and drug screening.

Key words: Parasite, Inflammatory bowel disease, Apoptosis, Diabetes, Multiple sclerosis, Asthma