Maggots Health Benefits, Properties, and Uses

Maggots are the live larvae of flies like house flies, blow flies, cheese flies and Brachycera flies. A maggot, or larva, is one stage in the life cycle of a fly. When flies reproduce, they lay eggs. The eggs hatch and produce larvae. Then, the larva grow to a pupa stage, which develop into flies.¹

Flies lay hundreds of eggs at a time, which means hundreds of maggots can be born at once. Flies typically lay their eggs in places where their larvae will have access to enough food. Maggots have to constantly eat in order to grow to the point of becoming a fly. It’s common to find maggots in pet food, compost bins, garbage cans or unsealed food in the kitchen.¹

Though maggots are considered gross pests, they are actually helpful in several capacities:

• Maggots can be used as fishing bait
• Maggots help forensic investigators calculate time of death
• Maggots can be used in therapeutic settings to help clean difficult wounds

Maggots Health Uses and Health Benefits

When you use maggots for medicinal uses, it’s called maggot therapy. Maggots are actually regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States as a legitimate form of medical treatment or medical device.²

Maggot therapy was first proposed by William Baer in the 20th century. His research proved that sterilized maggots could be used to treat non-acute external wounds when other conventional medicines had failed.³

By the late 1980’s, many medical experts referred to maggot therapy as a way to treat external skin wounds. This was in response to the increasing rate of antimicrobial resistance, meaning that patients were becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. This resistance prevented conventional medicine from being able to treat skin infections. Maggot health benefits and maggot therapy have become an important alternative in these cases.⁴

Here are two conditions that can be treated with maggots for medicinal uses:

• Wounds - Medical grade maggots for healing wounds can be used because they help eat the dissolved and infected skin tissue that develops due to skin wounds.
• Ulcers - When pressure ulcers become infected, maggots for healing skin wounds can clean and disinfect pressure ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers naturally.

Maggots Side Effects and Precautions

When using maggot therapy, you must take precautions regarding escaping maggots. Some patients receiving maggot therapy have reported feeling pain during treatment.⁴

References

1. https://dengarden.com/pest-control/getridofmaggots
2. http://www.monarchlabs.com/mdt 
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048269/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771513/