Parasitic infections are a major theme in the “hygiene hypothesis”, as allergies and autoimmune diseases are less prevalent in countries with higher burdens of helminths and other parasitic organisms. Inverse relationship between helminths infection and immune-mediated disease has inspired researchers to use immuneomodulatory potential of helminths towards reducing symptoms of immune mediated diseases. These observations, as well as, experimental data originated from mouse model have led to introduce the helminths as therapeutic agent for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), diabetes and allergic asthma. Treatment of human immune-mediated diseases with live helminths appears to be valid and well characterized but it has several drawbacks such as accidental infection, reduced immune response to viral, bacterial and protozoal infection and increased susceptibility to them, reduced efficacy of vaccine, atopic reaction and poor patient acceptance with consuming eggs or live worms . One solution for this problem might be the use of Excretory/Secretory and somatic products of helminth. Although the mechanism of helminth therapy in inflammatory diseases is not clear, one possible mechanism may be the ability of helminth to produce soluble antigens that can modulate host immune response and suppress the innate and adaptive immune response to helminths and unrelated antigens. Here we summarize antiallergic/anti-inflammatory effects of helminths together along with our own study of the effects of Marshallagia marshalli on allergic asthma in a murine model. We also discuss possible mechanisms of helminth-induced suppression according to the recent advances of immunology.

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