"At age 11, I developed this condition, called alopecia areata, where I lost my hair," says Velasquez-Manoff, a science writer in Berkeley, Calif. "It started in patches, but eventually I lost it all."
A few years ago Velasquez-Manoff was working on a bookabout autoimmune diseases, like allergies, asthma, Crohn's disease and alopecia. He talked to many people who were using an unlikely tool to treat their problems: parasitic worms that live in your gut — permanently.
The worms were getting rave reviews. "People were saying, 'I had absolutely zero symptoms. And my disease went into remission!'" Velasquez-Manoff says.
So he started to wonder: Could these worms cure his alopecia? Maybe his hay fever, too?
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