According to a study published in the journal Mucosal Immunology, a high-fat diet enables the immune system to get rid of a parasitic worm that is a significant source of illness and mortality in developing countries. The study was conducted by researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Manchester in the UK.

The study′s lead author, Dr. Evelyn Funjika, who was previously at Manchester University and is now at the University of Zambia, noted that the cheapest diets are often high in fat, and whipworm-prone areas are increasingly using these diets. Thus, a crucial unsolved problem for developing countries is how worm infection and western diets interact.

The findings of the study showed that a high-fat diet, rather than obesity itself, increased the ST2 molecule on T-helper cells, enabling an enhanced T-helper 2 response that ejected the parasite from the lining of the large intestine. She added that the high-fat diet enables the T-helper cells to create a proper immunological response to expel the worm in the case of whipworm infection.

The co-authors of the study stated that a typical diet does not trigger ST2, but a high-fat diet elevates the levels of ST2 and so facilitates expulsion via an alternative pathway. They added that it is fascinating that just changing the food entirely transformed the immune response in the stomach from one that fails to expel the parasite to one that brings about all the proper mechanisms to eradicate it. 

(Source: https://theprint.in/health/high-fat-diet-allows-immune-system-to-eliminate-parasitic-worm-study/1362754/ )