A PARASITE common in the developing world could help researchers develop drugs to treat heart disease, the biggest killer in the West.
Ronald Stanley’s team at the University of Wales in Bangor has discovered that one of the worms that causes the disease schistosomiasis, which affects around 300 million people around the world, can prevent fibrous deposits building up in arteries. This can cause heart attacks by cutting off blood flow to the arteries that supply the heart.
When the team injected the parasite into mice prone to atherosclerosis, it halved the number of artery constrictions and the rats’ cholesterol…
