Parasite infection may ease MS

Multiple sclerosis patients who are infected with the parasite that causes schistosomiasis have fewer relapses than those who are not infected, Argentine researchers reported Wednesday in the Annals of Neurology.

The findings corroborate theories that immune modulation by infections can reduce the severity of autoimmune diseases like MS. In the study, 12 MS patients infected with the parasite had three relapses over the 57 months of the study; the 12 who were not infected had 56.