- The traditional way of becoming infected with a tapeworm is by eating raw meat, being in contact with infected faeces and other foods containing tapeworm. However, for the purposes of dieting, methods would include the tablet form.
Tablet form you say? I wonder who makes tapeworm tablets these days . . .
This is completely insane. I wonder if people actually do this.
I think enough people know by now that tapeworms are no good (even if they are all-natural). Who knows? Maybe as biotech develops, someone will find a way to create a symbiotic relationship with tapeworms instead of a parasitic one. Now for a tapeworm story. I used to date a girl from a region of rural Vietnam close to the Cambodian border. Really girly girl, but also knew how to forage for all kinds of edible plants and could easily out-fish me and was much better at climbing trees. Badass bombshell. She told me that when she was a kid, she used to really love this one kind of sausage because where she grew up, it was pretty rare that she'd get to eat it. One day, they were having a party or something at her house and she saw that they would be eating that sausage. She got too excited to wait and so she stole little bit of it and ate it . . . before it was cooked. Months later, she started getting sick and kind of bloated. Now, there are a couple ways to get rid of tapeworms. The easiest is to take pills, which kill the tapeworm (not to mention a bunch of other stuff that lives in your guts). It's pretty effective, but also kind of expensive, especially if you come from the sticks. The traditional way, is to sit in a tub of body temperature water so that the worm comes out. If you don't know, tapeworms can get pretty big, as in, 12m is not unheard of. So, she sat in the tub of hot water to let it come out. The thing is, tapeworms are very delicate creatures and being worms, if any part of it breaks off while still inside, you are still infected. The solution? To remain absolutely still as meters and meters of parasite crawl out of your ass. I guess she lost as much weight as the tapeworm weighed.
Wow that is a really disgusting (and interesting) story!!! That is so gross!! Good point on the future of biotech, although it's not clear which way these health developments will go. I guess lots of people get surgery now to reduce their stomach size so maybe they can also figure out some less invasive procedure for that.
As a biologist, do you think there is truth to the statement that during most of our evolution we had worms living inside us as a rule, and not an exception? That somehow the absence of these worms disturbs an evolved equilibrium?
That was my guess, thanks. Have people done projections of what effects our current behaviors will have on us ? Most of us are sitting, starring at a lighted screen for hours at a time. Will this have an effect on how our bodies evolve over time? I suppose this has only been a very short period of time in the grand scheme of things and could potentially be a short lived era, who knows.
You have to keep in mind that what we do has nothing to do with how we evolve. How we elvolve has only to do with how we produce offspring. So unless being a couch potato has a comparative advantage over not being one (in terms of likeliness of having kids), then I think it won't affect how we change in the future.
As a biologist, I'd say no. This seems to be an argument used for and against a number of lifestyle choices. It's a simplistic and reductionist argument that often doesn't make sense. I've often heard the argument that humans haven't drank milk until recently, and thus, you shouldn't. However, many humans continue to produce lactase throughout their lives, and for them, milk has represented an excellent source of nutrition. Humans have been struggling with lice for ages. However, it's very unlikely that ridding ourselves of them we have lost more than we have gained. I'd say that the same goes for large intestinal parasites.
You use the milk analogy just to reassure your milk loving self. Do you think the example of us using hand sanitizer's and therefore missing out on the strengthening of our resistance to certain bacterias etc is an example of us missing out on pathogens that are beneficial over time? -I'm sure I'm using the wrong language here and if so, I apologize but I'm guessing you catch my point.
Floating Cheerios in it just hides the truth. I think it's a case by case issue, and the problem is that people often generalize the argument when it's convenient. No doubt, too much sterility is likely a bad thing.You use the milk analogy just to reassure your milk loving self.
Do you think the example of us using hand sanitizer's and therefore missing out on the strengthening of our resistance to certain bacterias etc is an example of us missing out on pathogens that are beneficial over time?
Who could think that a tapeworm could survive in your stomach? They attach in the intestines where they won't be dissolved by digestive enzymes.You are a host and tapeworm uses you by attaching suckers to your stomach and feeding on the foods that you eat.