Extremely positive early results are leading researchers to intentionally infect coeliacs with worms.

The gluten-sensitive test subjects will be injected with hookworm larvae for the study that seeks a revolutionary new treatment for coeliac disease, an illness affecting one in 70 Australians.

The larvae burrow through the patients' skin and make their way into the intestines, where they secrete anti-inflammatory proteins that appear to allow their host to consume gluten.

Subjects in the 40-person trial will gradually reintroduce gluten into their diet after the worms take hold.

Hookworms cannot breed within the human body, so the experts say their numbers will not spiral out of control.

The study expands on a previous project that saw some coeliacs able to eat the equivalent of a bowl of spaghetti – a task that earlier would have been impossible without diarrhoea, cramps and vomiting.

The project is being run by James Cook University doctors, who say they hope to develop a drug derived from the parasites.

Brisbane man Peter Letheren has eaten a coeliac diet for the last 15 years, and says it is “incredibly difficult to live with”.

“I hate it with a passion,” he told the ABC.

“The food doesn't taste as good as normal food, you can't go out and have a meal with all your friends... so you feel like a leper.”

He was stunned by the results of a pilot project he participated in a few years ago, and is keen to be re-infected.

“I actually went out and I went to town and I had pizza and ice-cream, and salad sandwiches and Subway, just all the things I’ve missed for the last 15 years. And I was absolutely fine, I was terrific,” he said.

“The worms take about four years before they die, unfortunately - and we call them our friends.

“Everyone in the trial called the worms our friends, so we don't want them to leave us, but they do.”