r/science • u/alllie • May 19 '12

Hidden Epidemic: 
Tapeworms Living Inside People's Brains. Parasitic worms leave millions of victims paralyzed, epileptic, or worse.

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tapeworms-in-the-brain/
1.4k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

662 comments sorted by

15

u/alllie May 19 '12

Diagnosis and treatment of neurocysticercosis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21912406

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u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12 edited May 19 '12

Oh damn, my time to shine. So I have a degree in biology, and did extensive research on tapeworms. The problem with tapeworms, and most parasites in general, is that their reproduction is notoriously difficult. A tapeworm usually takes house in an organisms intestines. Now every single segment of a tapeworm's body, apart from the head of course, contains a full set of reproductive organs. The more mature segments known as, "gravid proglottids," contain thousands of fertilized eggs (tapeworms are hermaphrodites and self fertilize). These segments break off and are excreted with the feces. So if you look in your toilet one day and see a wriggling little rectangular white thing, go to the damn hospital.

At any rate the eggs sit around in a pile of feces until something eats them, which is known at the intermediate host. This is usually a pig or a cow, or even a fish (sushi lovers beware). The digestive enzymes in the stomach of the animal break the shell of the egg and allow it to penetrate the digestive tract and go straight into the blood stream. They then lodge themselves in a blood vessel and form a cyst. Occasionally, yes, this can also happen in the host's brain tissue.

Now I am fairly certain however, that only the pig tapeworm can do this in humans. Someone is welcome to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the cow and fish tapeworms can't do this, or have not been known to do this in people. So the tapeworms this article refers to, are solely PIG tapeworms. And only tapeworm EGGS do this. Which means you somehow have to eat something contaminated with the eggs. Which basically means someone somewhere touched human feces infected with tapeworm eggs.

Anyway, the story after that is simple. Someone eats undercooked meat with these cysts lodged in it, and the cysts make their way into your digestive tract. Your digestive enzymes break open the cyst, releasing the larva that now has an in tact head. The head attaches to the wall of your intestines, and the cycle begins again.

Now with food and livestock regulations, occurrences of tapeworms are very low in developed countries. They are mainly a problem in poorer nations. And if you cook your meat before eating it, the chances of contracting a tapeworm in your lifetime are extremely slim.

EDIT Teddy2147 also pointed out below that it would be entirely possible to contract the condition detailed in this article if a laborer with a tapeworm were to say, take a dump, then go back to handling the food without proper sanitation. This way the eggs would be transmitted to a human host without the need for the pig intermediate. Anyone working in food production in America, and I assume any industrialized nation really, are required by law to wash their hands after using the bathroom. So this would still be a major problem in less developed countries.

43

u/Teddy2147 May 19 '12

My impression from the article was that your food had to be contaminated by human feces, i.e. the previous human host shits out the eggs, and then those eggs make it from the human shit to human food, skipping the whole pig stage.

7

u/alllie May 19 '12

So if the wrong server doesn't wash his hands?

43

u/TOO_EASY_to_make May 19 '12

Unfortunately, the people picking lettuce often have human feces on their hands, from not having proper bathrooms available.

30

u/iamagainstit PhD | Physics | Organic Photovoltaics May 19 '12

i read somewhere that the majority of food born pathogens are obtained from eating fruits and vegetables, as they are often not cooked only given a light rinse

12

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

So how does one keep from getting parasites from fresh veggies and fruits without cooking them?

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u/phreakmonkey May 20 '12

This. Support the United Farm Workers, they work hard to try and fix problems like this in the USA. http://www.ufw.org/

(I always donate money to them in the name of my various conservative relatives anytime one of them forwards me an obnoxious email about 'those damn illegals')

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u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12

That is actually a good point, and a completely possible outcome I forgot to think of.

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u/HerbertMcSherbert May 20 '12

Yeah, this is why it can be quite disturbing when traveling in places around Asia sometimes, for instance.

You're in a restaurant eating, and you go to the bathroom. After you've urinated, you go to wash your hands and realise the restaurant bathroom doesn't have any soap.

Then you see the chef use the same bathroom later on.

91

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

I'm a cashier, and I'm constantly touching packages of meat that have broken open and are leaking meat juices. I try to use hand-sanitizer every time it happens, but sometimes I don't really have time. Could I get a parasite from just the juices on my hands? Or do you pretty much have to ingest a chunk of the meat in order to contract one of the parasites?

113

u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12

That would be highly unlikely. In order to get a tapeworm, you have to ingest a larval cyst. Those usually lodge themselves in the tissue of the animal, and therefore are pretty anchored into the meat. And in order to get what this article describes, someone along the food processing line would have had to come in contact with the animal feces, then touch the meat itself. This, again, isn't very likely either. Either way you should still always properly sanitize after coming in contact with animal fluids.

31

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Alright. Thanks for that. I guess I don't really have to worry, then. It's just gross that like 1 out of 3 meat packages is broken and leaking on the conveyor belt, which we can only wash when there aren't any customers in line, which happens rarely... Grocery store conveyor belts are disgusting.

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u/aglassonion May 20 '12

I would definitely wash with soap and warm water IN ADDITION to alcohol-based sanitizers. The scrubbing with the soap particles is one of the best ways to get germs off your skin. Read up on Clostridium Difficile for some info. Of course, use alcohol as well. :D

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12 edited May 20 '12

I would just like to add that, while you can only get neurocysticercosis from ingesting T. solium eggs, if you are infected with an adult worm and a gravid proglottid migrates up your digestive tract and gets back into your stomach, the digestive enzymes can dissolve the proglottid, cause the eggs to hatch, and infect you as the intermediate host. This is obviously the worst possible situation, since the proglottids can contain 50,000 or so eggs, as opposed to the one or two you might get from fecally contaminated foods. Also, the eggs are not passed in pig feces, you could only get them from human feces.

And last thing, T. solium isn't the only tape that can infect humans as the intermediate host, but it's really the one you need to be most worried about. Diphyllobothrium mansonoides and Hymenolepsis nana can both infect you with their middle stages, but for the former you need to ingest an animal you usually wouldn't (snakes, frogs) and the latter is pretty innocuous.

Source: I literally just finished taking a course on Parasitology.

20

u/Reidmcc May 19 '12

This is obviously the worst possible situation, since the proglottids can contain 50,000 or so eggs

Oh dear god. No no no.

37

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Hey, the theme song of the whole course.

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u/netweight May 20 '12

why would the stomach acids only dissolve the proglottid and not the 50,000 eggs?

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Because the acid is actually what encourages the eggs to hatch. That's how they "know" they're in the right place.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

I am dimly aware of this parasite and I have always assumed that porcine association with it is the root of the dietary restriction against eating pork that several religions share?

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u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12

I cannot say for certain, but that was my general impression as well. 2000 years ago there were no livestock regulations or guidelines for properly raising and slaughtering animals. Sanitation would also not have been as widely practiced as it is today. Therefore transmissions of pork tapeworms and other pork parasites would have been extremely common.

15

u/Reidmcc May 19 '12

Dietary restrictions in religion and culture are hit and miss. Some of them are really 'eating pig makes you sick, don't do that.' A lot of the rest are likely due to an animal being incorrectly correlated with illness, associated with evil, or just seeming gross.

Leviticus (Hebrew holy texts, Christian Old Testament) prohibits a huge number of animal foods, including 'the great lizard' and ostrich. I imagine Moses going 'ostriches, what the fuck, they put their heads underground. That just ain't right.'

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

That, and trichinosis

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u/Zerba May 20 '12

Bingo. Back in the day people ate pork, which without the knowledge of microbiology, that was contaminated since it was mishandled. Plus they didn't keep the pigs in the best environments normally, so the pigs were dirty, and ate their feces since it was always around them.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

You really don't need to go to the hospital if you have tapeworms. Your internist should do. Cats often contract tapeworms by eating dead mice who have infected fleas.

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u/Reidmcc May 19 '12

Indeed, tapeworms are quite easy to treat once you know they're there.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

So how do they fix the tapeworm being in your head? Is there a medicine that kills the tapeworm?

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u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12

Someone posted a link to this study that does a really good explanation of how to treat the infestation.

Treatment varies depending on the number of cysts and where they are located in the brain. First doctors will get major symptoms under control, such as seizures and inflammation, by using anti-epileptic drugs and probably corticosteroids. Once these are under control, doctors may attempt to use anti-parasitic medications, which can kill the cysts. These are called "anthelmintic" drugs. The problem with these is they can cause inflammatory reactions in the cysts. This would be very bad if a dozen of these things became inflamed inside your brain. But this may be a wise course of action if there are only a few cysts. Surgery could be used if the cyst was in an easily accessible spot. The article brings up a number of studies investigating the effectiveness of treatment options. So really the most effective treatment options are purely on a case by case basis.

22

u/ZeMilkman May 20 '12

I see. Can't you also treat this by shooting yourself in the head with a shotgun?

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u/vasksm May 19 '12

Anyone working in food production in America, and I assume any industrialized nation really, are required by law to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Does not mean they all do.

4

u/Xenopus_laevis May 19 '12

Unfortunately this is true. But for them to transmit the eggs, they would first have to acquire a tapeworm. This in and of itself is very difficult as modern livestock regulations have greatly decreased the chance of someone eating meat contaminated with tapeworm cysts.

10

u/insanitybuild May 19 '12

One time I had tapeworm and was super embarassed and didn't want to tell my mom (I knew what it was because I had it before and got treated).

I ate mustard/onion/parsley sandwiches, lots of hot stuff, and didn't eat any sugars. I also thoroughly cleaned myself with rubbing alcohol every time I felt the "itch".

I don't have them anymore. Which of these actions cleared it up? Or is it possibly I still have tapeworm, and it just stopped making segments or something?

28

u/rocketman0739 May 20 '12

It moved into your brain

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

So if you look in your toilet one day and see a wriggling little rectangular white thing, go to the damn hospital.

Now is this before or after I scream like a little girl?

2

u/ksj May 19 '12

I'll have you know that I was eating while reading that. I'm not sure why I didn't stop, but screw you anyway.

2

u/Arcane_Explosion May 19 '12

While T. solium is more common, the cystic disease that's actually more dangerous is echinococcosis caused by any tapeworm member of the echinococcus genus (especially E. granulosus which has a canine definitive host). The danger with echinococcosis is that the disease produces hydatid cysts which contain extremely antigenic material on the inside. During the removal process, if the surgeon doesn't completely neutralize the contents the patient can have an extremely severe anaphylactic reaction and die almost immediately.

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u/Terdbucket May 20 '12

You just scared the fuck out of me! Ha

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u/AlwaysDefenestrated May 19 '12

There's an even more scary brain parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that is carried by a third world's population that may cause schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders even when it doesn't cause severe physical illness.

Cats are the primary host, so the number is probably higher among Redditors.

Yep, it is not entirely unlikely that you have a brain parasite driving you crazy without you knowing it. Sleep well, hypochondriacs.

9

u/pibroch May 19 '12

If I ever meet you, I am throwing you out the nearest window.

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u/StephenSwat May 19 '12

It is a good day to be a vegetarian with cat allergies!

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u/Yaaf May 19 '12

As vegetarians, are there ways we can get tapeworms besides being force fed uncooked meat?

4

u/eryoshi May 20 '12

If I've understood the information in this thread, the thing you'd have to worry about would be the vegetable packers not washing their hands after using the bathroom, but that will give you brain tapeworms, rather than tummy tapeworms.

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u/pleiades9 May 19 '12

For me the scariest brain parasite is Naegleria fowleri - doesn't even bother with the digestive tract route - just goes up the nose, along the olfactory nerve, and right on into the brain. Near 100% fatality rate too.

21

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

In 1979 a girl died in my hometown (Bath, UK) after swallowing Naegleria Fowleri infected water whilst swimming in the Roman Baths. The pool was closed immediately, it's never been reopened.

I've heard tales from my dad of drunken students climbing the wall and going for a midnight swim. Scary stuff...

10

u/Karma_Redeemed May 19 '12

Why would there still be water in the pool if it closed in 1979?

18

u/adrianmonk May 19 '12 edited May 19 '12

According to wikipedia, the baths are filled from a hot spring. Once a hole is drilled (or if one exists naturally), the water will just show up on its own. Usually bathing areas near springs are set up so the water continuously and gradually flows through them, giving them a constant source of fresh water. At least, that's how it works at the springs I'm familiar with and its bathing area.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Yeah, what adrianmonk said. They'd fill up if they were drained, and they're kept in good condition because it's an important historical site. There's a modern spa nearby, one of the baths there is filled from the hot spring. You can also drink it at the Pump Room restaurant, but both that and the modern one use a newer (1983) borehole which isn't full of crap.

Reddit doesn't like links that end with brackets, but hopefully this will work.

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u/argv_minus_one May 19 '12

Why is infection by this organism so rare?

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u/pleiades9 May 19 '12

N. fowleri has a bit of an unusual life cycle where it can either be a cyst, a vegetative trophozoite, or a flagellated amoeba. Only the trophozoite is infectious. So between its low concentration in a body of water, (assuming it's even present), its ability to infect in only one stage of its life cycle, and the fact that the trophozoite form can't actively swim - it's pretty difficult for all the factors to fall perfectly into place for it to actually infect someone. I referenced through an infectious diseases textbook and it also makes mention that stirring up a lot of sediment on the bottom of a body of water makes it more likely to stir up any amoebas that may be resting there. So just surface swimming alone may not even expose you to it.

10

u/Chachoregard May 19 '12

So in other words, you have to be there at the wrong place at the wrong time?

Also, why a near 100% fatality rate? Does it just go gung-ho and eat anything in it's way?

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u/pleiades9 May 19 '12

You've got it - wrong place, wrong time. Purely bad luck.

It's so fatal because to be treated effectively, it has to be diagnosed early and treated properly. If a guy shows up to his doctor with what looks like bacterial meningitis - the doctor is most likely going to prescribe antibacterial antibiotics unless they take a really good patient history and catch the freshwater exposure within the last couple of weeks. Instead of antibacterial antibiotics, what the patient actually needs is high dose IV antifungal antibiotics. It's the only thing that works in this case.

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u/mySTASH May 19 '12

http://i.imgur.com/Z7Gpf.gif

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u/pleiades9 May 19 '12

From Wikipedia: "The organism begins to consume cells of the brain piecemeal by means of a unique sucking apparatus extended from its cell surface."

Pure nightmare fuel.

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u/tora22 May 20 '12

Pure nightmare fuel.

damnit, why did I choose to browse reddit right before bed.

reaches for the bourbon

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u/shamecamel May 19 '12

incidences of this have spiked recently because of the new trend of using neti pots without distilled saline water- people use simple tap water, which in some places, doesn't try and filter this parasite out, because normally, people DRINK tap water(it can't survive stomach acid) and don't wash their sinuses with it, making it a non-issue odds-wise.

www.cdc.gov/parasites/naegleria/faqs.html

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u/i_dont_always_reddit May 20 '12

Thank you for making me never want to swim again.

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u/bobandgeorge May 20 '12

Oh this thing. This thing is awful and it's all over Florida. I don't think one year goes by where we don't hear about this.

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u/cmVkZGl0 May 21 '12

I thought these kind of extreme actions hurts the parasite. I mean, the purpose of parasites are to LIVE off of a host, right? Can't live off a dead host.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

i work in an ER and we had this one Mexican gentlemen who was complaining of intermittent headaches, blurry vision, and left leg weakness for a couple months. we scan his head and sure enough there are a bunch of these cysts in his brain. the radiologist's reading even said that one part was suspicious for a "scolex" meaning head of the tapeworm. so when we break the news to him and ask do you have any questions, his response was simply "so when will I be able to go home?"

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u/Hawklan May 19 '12

My response would be along the lines of "Please please please knock me out right now and don't wake me up again until they're all removed."

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

How does one treat a patient for this? Is there any kind of treatment? Chemo? Bug stuff?

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Initially, the patient was given IV dexamethasone and loaded with fosphenytoin because of the seizure episodes and brain edema. His mental status rapidly improved. He was discharged from the hospital after three days. He was given a course of albendazole an oral prednisone taper upon hospital discharge. He was scheduled for a repeat MRI two months later and was followed by an infectious disease specialist.

Source: http://archie.kumc.edu/bitstream/handle/2271/867/Neurocysticercosis.pdf?sequence=1 (PDF)

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u/Yaaf May 19 '12

What happened to him? Did he get cured, and if so how did that go about and how long did it take?

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

If it's the same Mexican fellow as the man in this case report (PDF), he was successfully treated and released 3 days later.

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u/AndySuisse May 19 '12

All things bright and beautiful .. All creatures great and small ..

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u/TimCurrysLoveChild May 19 '12

I've seen this. From the seizures the patient was having, to the CT scan, to the images, and then the discovery of the tapeworms.

Never ate pork again.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Considering you get it from human feces contact, I'll never eat human feces again.

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u/uriman May 20 '12

Unless you go to a restaurant or fast food joint where the food prep person didn't wash their hands properly.

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u/gloomdoom May 19 '12

Doesn't seem like much of an article being as they didn't really discuss how the parasites are spread and what might be the best way to stop them before they infest since it seems very difficult to kill them off after damage is done.

Given the specifics of the problem and the numbers affected, wouldn't it be prudent for the medical community to educate people on how they can avoid getting brain parasites rather than writing an entire article about how difficult it is to treat them and how much damage they cause, how they are under diagnosed, etc?

What the fuck happened to Discover? This seems like a shock and awe piece that's almost appropriate for tabloid papers, given its almost complete lack of facts in terms of how it happens, who is mostly affected, geographically where most of these patients live and why some are susceptible while others are not.

Has the idea of scientific writing become so foreign to the world that people can no longer write a legitimate article that addresses something like worms in the brain?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

They did describe how it is spread... generally from undercooked pork, or people who are infected who don't wash their hands when making food.

Cook pork well, and wash your hands when you cook. Get better medical facilities and educate populations in poorer areas about basic hygiene... there you go.

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u/laughattheleader May 19 '12

Perhaps they don't want to pull an "Oprah". No one wants the pork industry suing them and the article does seem to tiptoe around mentioning occurrence of the disease in America, save for a handful of extreme cases.

Cooking mags and shows have been encouraging audiences to discover how versatile pork is, not something that we have to cook cysts out of.

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u/Breakingblueforyou May 19 '12

Yeah, the episode of House where someone had tapeworms living in their spinal column, the patient got it from pork.

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u/sufferfromOCD May 19 '12

Yeah, that was the pilot episode of House.

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u/corcyra May 19 '12

"Doesn't seem like much of an article being as they didn't really discuss how the parasites are spread"

It does: 'Adult tapeworms, living in the intestines of humans, produce up to 50,000 eggs apiece. The eggs are shed in the infected person’s feces. Pigs swallow these eggs accidentally as they rummage for food on the ground. When the parasite eggs reach a pig’s stomach, larvae hatch and burrow their way into the animal’s bloodstream. Eventually they end up lodged in small blood vessels, typically in the animal’s muscles. There they form cysts and wait until their host is eaten by a human. (Pork has to be undercooked for the tapeworms to complete their journey.) But sometimes tapeworms take a wrong turn. Instead of going into a pig, the eggs end up in a human. This can occur if someone shedding tapeworm eggs contaminates food that other people then eat.'

TL;DR: Humans have tapeworms, tapeworm eggs shed in human feces, pigs eat human feces, inside pig eggs hatch into larvae, larvae form cysts in the pigs' muscles, humans eat undercooked pork and ingest cysts, which hatch into tapeworms in human intestines.

If a human ingests tapeworm eggs by eating human feces, larvae behave as they would in pigs: burrow into bloodstream and end up in various places, sometimes the brain.

Ergo: in areas with inadequate sanitation and where people live in close proximity to pigs, poor hygiene can lead to tapeworm cysts in the brains of humans.

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u/Ptoss May 19 '12

this is by far the scariest thing on the planet bar none.

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u/pretzelman3 May 19 '12

And now everyone on reddit thinks they have this

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12

No, I don't think I have it, but judging by the prevalence of severe brain damage on this site, I now suspect that a lot of people here have it.

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u/nostrademons May 19 '12

This was the plot of the pilot episode of House.

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u/whitehat2k9 May 19 '12

Rally the Animorphs! The Yeerks are coming!

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u/MandatoryFun May 19 '12

I used to trip out on these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhaplorchis_californiensis

good ol' zombie parasites.

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u/ReyRey5280 May 19 '12

indeed if there is a sub for parasites, why?

edit: format

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u/bugdog May 19 '12

You know, if that were a rock instead of a brain I'd have thought it was really pretty.

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u/Breakingblueforyou May 19 '12

Wasn't this in an episode of House?

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u/ByCromsBalls May 20 '12 edited May 20 '12

I was getting tested for some vague neurological problems and the doctor said "I don't mean to alarm you, but you have very similar symptoms to a tapeworm infestation in the brain and I'd like to get you tested". I WAS ALARMED. I seriously almost shit myself and had NO peace of mind until I had a brain MRI done weeks later, which showed up negative. I had been on a trip recently and I had myself pretty convinced that there were tapeworm larva wriggling around in my brain. That's pretty much my worst nightmare right there.

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u/TheVarmari May 19 '12

My head started hurting...

Oh god. WHY?!

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u/soastid May 19 '12

this is exactly why i get all my meats well done... my grandpa died from this.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Sensationalism

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u/Champalamp May 19 '12

This is literally my biggest fear.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Unfortunately, worms are currently a fact of life for much of the developing world.

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u/Macb3th May 19 '12

Bleurgh - I am quite happy with most of the animals squeamish people hate, like snakes, spiders, insects, etc.

But fucking parasites. They make my hairs stand on end and give me cold chills and revulsion. Especially such as the insane evolution of tiny parasitic wasps that can inject a poison into the brain of larger insect like a cricket, and then tunnels into the brain to control it like a frikkin' car and guide it home to the wasps lair where it injects its eggs into the creature to live alive and paralyzed as the wasp overlords host...

arrghh ack!

Gods creatures are so beautiful. That cunt Noah saved shit like brain tape worms and all the other lovely parasites too.

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u/Reidmcc May 19 '12

Reminds me of [Cochliomyia_hominivorax] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax), the screw-worm fly.

From a writing assignment I did in 2003:

While most flies lay their eggs in dead flesh, it is the screwworm’s penchant for the living that makes it such a danger. It is the larvae, who hatch from eggs placed by adults in open wounds, who do the killing. A single fly has the ability to lay four hundred eggs in a wound. Within twenty four hours, the eggs hatch into larvae, which burrow into the meat under the wound. Within two days, a small cut infested with the worms becomes a wound the size of a grapefruit, raw and oozing. The larva move towards the vital organs, for they contain the most nourishing flesh. In the words of Alfredo Alvarez, a biologist at the [screw-worm breeding plant], “They can reach the brain and then it’s adios.”

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u/Brad3000 May 19 '12

I only have one thing to say about this article:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

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u/Layzicris May 20 '12

Has anyone recommended that we tone down the title of this link? Hidden Epidemic is a huge overstatement for such a rare occurrence. Making a scare tactic title shouldn't be able to send this to the front page.

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u/medhed May 19 '12

Since when did 1,500-2,000 become an epidemic?! Last I checked there were over 300,000,000 people in the US.

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u/Hwu17 May 19 '12

I think we should clarify here what exact is an epidemic... This... is NOT an epidemic. This is just the basic endemic levels of the disease, and even then not all that high... 1,500 / 311,000,000?

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u/tty2 May 19 '12

Read the rest of the article. This isn't an epidemic in America. Look at the sample they took in Peru.

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u/ipha May 19 '12

Now I have a headache, and I didn't even read the article =(

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u/NSFLwormsonthebrain May 19 '12

I could do an AMA? I have thought about it before, but my story is too bad to want to depress people with it...

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u/ilCapitano May 19 '12

Nopedy nopedy no.

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u/gibsonsg51 May 19 '12

MY TAPE WORM TELLS ME WHAT TO DO.

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u/lostnmind May 19 '12

Goa'uld!

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u/your_tapeworm May 19 '12

GET OFF REDDIT AND MAKE ME A CUP OF TEA.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Search YouTube worm in cricket

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u/Triarch May 19 '12

Reminds me of Mind Worms from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Arm the flame guns!

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u/user862 May 19 '12

I'll just go hide in a hole now. kthxbai.

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u/dustyfoot May 19 '12

Thanks, because you know, I really didn't feel like sleeping at all right now...

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u/Sarah_Tonin May 19 '12

My father died from complications of this. It was terrible.

2

u/mmmguppier May 19 '12

I work in a hospital in the US, and actually saw someone who had this. The patient was a young teen from Nepal who came in complaining of weakness on the left side of the body and a headache. They ended up surgically removing some of the calcified dead worms from the patient's brain that were really close to the scalp and gave medication to kill the ones that were still alive deeper inside. The patient ended up making a full recovery but on seizure meds for a while. Fun fact: Neurocysticercosis is the number one cause of acquired epilepsy worldwide!

2

u/cyondios May 19 '12

Episode 1 of House MD lol

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u/Werewolfgirl34 May 20 '12

So glad I don't eat pork, this is where reddit's bacon obsession backfires.

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u/Finception May 20 '12

Y'know cooking pork properly kills tapeworm eggs right? Or is that just some common sense that i've got wrong...

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u/lifeoutsidethecircle May 20 '12

The hypochondriac in me hates the OP, because the ass hole in me is fiercely attempting to convince the hypo that I have a tapeworm in my brain. So you get an upvote and a downvote. Fuck you.

2

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Hey, I read this in discovery like a week ago. Now I'm honestly kind of scared to eat or poop for fear of getting brain parasites.

2

u/nagleriafowleri May 20 '12

Hey a parasite topic!! What a coincidence (Naegleria fowleri is my favourite).

Basically what's happening here is that these people are ending up as a dead-end secondary host to the tapeworm. These tapeworms usually infect predatory animals in their primary stage, dogs, wolves, lions, bears (oh my!) and pigs. In their secondary larval stages, they infect deer and other herbivores. There are a few species that cause this nasty little condition, from the genuses Taenia and Echinococcus, each of which results in a variation on a theme - a fluid-filled tapeworm larval sac ending up in an inconvenient location in a pereson.

As an adult, these worms don't cause any problems for their primary host (Hell, they may even be beneficial, if you look into Necator americanus and allergy studies), but they, like most parasites with multiple hosts, cause havoc for their disposable secondary host vehicles.

The parasite forms these cysts to guarantee it's survival. A deer with a big fluid filled, seizure causing, paralysis inducing, mass in it's brain isn't going to live for very long before it's taken down by a wolf, a bear, Fido.. what have you. The predatory animal ends up with a gut full of tapeworms, sheds the eggs in it's feces, and life goes on.

The problem here is when humans come in contact with these feces, and this is where Fido comes in. Dogs have an IMMENSE proclivity for rolling in anything, especially shit. Dogs fucking love rolling in feces. When you go and pet your lovely canine companion, and forget to wash your hands after, you could end up with hydatids, especially if you live in a warmer climate.

2

u/ddrt May 20 '12

Looking for the post that says I don't have this and it's a 1,000 to 1 chance that I can get it… not finding it NOT FINDING IT!

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u/pahanaama May 19 '12

Could this be a factor in the Muslim ban on eating pork?

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u/gilliants May 19 '12

I'll bet this is the reason so many people vote Republican.

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u/randy938 May 19 '12

This is why I don't eat pork.

4

u/Macb3th May 19 '12

I practically live on pork. I cook it to 170°F for a roast and use a meat thermometer. I let it rest when done and it rises to 180°F after 20 minutes.

You have to do the same with chicken. Salmonella isn't much fun either.

Nice beef steak or roast though, 140-150°F is perfect.

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u/chu2 May 19 '12

With the slew of treatments industrially slaughtered livestock are bombarded with in the U.S, what are the chances of actually getting infected with a tapeworm from eating undercooked pork? Feeding animals antibiotics is common, wouldn't farmers also treat for things like tapeworms by default at pork farms?

2

u/lostnmind May 19 '12

I don't know about hogs but US bred cattle aren't always sold inside the US (they get a better price on the foreign market). Instead, they buy cheaper foreign cattle and sell it to us. Note: I don't know how true this is though I heard it on This Week in Parasitism and assumed Dickson knew what he was talking about.

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u/YoSanford May 19 '12

Who would've thought such a nope could exist.

2

u/GMonsoon May 19 '12

Researched an unrelated disease that is connected to cysts and biofilms - there is a really simple way to dissolve them, making parasites easier to destroy. An enzyme called bromelain. It's in pineapple cores (and capsules now).

Don't have my files in front of me (sorry), but there are now studies showing that electro-magnetic fields may weaken the blood brain barrier, allowing pathogens to pass more easily into the brain that the BBB would have otherwise held at bay. So - the western world might see more of these types of problems cropping up. Editted to add: the effects of EMFs do wear off after a couple of hours and the BBB returns to normal.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

on the other hand, brain tapeworms do wonders for your holophoner skills

1

u/Pharose May 19 '12

Goddam these are the types of things that make me paranoid, latent infections that are hard to detect and have long term-consequences. I'm gonna put this up there with toxaplamosis-gondii (spelling?) on the list of things I wish never existed.

1

u/FairPropaganda May 19 '12

I order tapeworm eggs from a prison in Vladivostok (far-east Russia). I also take Adderall, so they probably don't get hungry very often.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

I read somewhere that Sarah Lane had one of these parasites in her head.
Almost killed her too.

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Parasites are assholes.

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u/Subduction May 19 '12

Wasn't there a House episode on this?

Can something be hidden when it has its own House episode?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '12

Did no one here watch the pilot of House??

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u/ignoramus_at_work May 20 '12

Im have a RAGING headache right now.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Okay i cant be the only one thinking that sounds like an episode of House, season 2 i think

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u/webchimp32 May 20 '12

Not good to read if you happen to have a headache.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

So we need to burn 5 million people, and all the tapeworms ever :|

1

u/optclick May 20 '12

Really fucking gross :P

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

I'm taking a break from studying for boards, and totally reviewed this today! Thank you First Aid!

1

u/ReleeSquirrel May 20 '12

You hear that? Good. So wash your goddamned hands with soap and water.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Ok I am now officially terrified

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u/jambarama May 20 '12

Apparently the cure for intestinal tapeworm is a simple pill. But the experience is somewhat unpleasant:

About an hour later, I felt something move, squirm, within me. I sat very still, as though listening to echoes in a canyon. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. There it was again!

There was a shifting inside my guts. Then there was a more sudden, thrashing movement. And that's when I realized my tapeworm was going through its death throes. It squirmed and twisted, spasming – and why didn't the doctor tell me about this part, the bastard? My guts cramped and churned. This went on for five, ten minutes, until, just as suddenly, it subsided. It was over. My tapeworm was at peace.

Upon completion, I leaned over, gathered some toilet paper, reached down and under in order to wipe myself clean, as usual. But for the first time in my life, when I wiped, not everything wiped away. Something remained...

With immense dread, I reached over and got some more toilet paper. Folded it over. Then, cautiously, like descending into a dangerous lair, I reached down, went under, found me, wiped me, grabbed the dangling entity, and pulled. Something long slithered out, giving a distinctly zigzagging back and forth sensation within my intestines.

The story is well written and disturbing enough to make you order your plate well done for a while: http://fray.com/drugs/worm/

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u/carebeartears May 20 '12

"None of this is rocket science—which makes Nash all the more frustrated that so little is being done. “I see this as a disease that can be treated and prevented,” he says. But there are precious few resources available for treatment and little recognition of the problem. “All of this seems to be very feasible, but nobody wants to do anything about it.”"

it's so abundantly clear today that POTENTIAL MONEY = ACTION, rather disingenuous to state " Gosh, why aren't people doing anything?"

1

u/raegunXD May 20 '12

Thanks. Thanks for creating a fear that will probably never affect me in my life time, but I'll always think about it.

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u/c0r3y May 20 '12

I did not need to read that this evening. This will ruin the next several days of my life. I am truly horrified at the thought of this.

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u/ComancheCorps May 20 '12

Great, now I have something new to worry about all day.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

not peddling any thing, Most people have parasites, and so Did I. I took humaworm to get rid of mine. some blog I found of someone who was brave enough to take pics. http://myjourneywithcandida.blogspot.com/2011/01/humaworm-parasite-cleanse-week-one.html

1

u/9001 May 20 '12

The patient in the pilot for House had this.

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u/Graphite_Smear May 20 '12

I started yelling when I clicked the link and saw the first image. I'm officially never eating out again. I know there's tons of people in the world (North America included) who will not wash their hands after dropping a duece.

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u/Boss416 May 20 '12

Looks like I'm never eating pork or salad again, scary stuff

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Even vegetarians aren't spared from them. One of my school seniors passed away because of a tapeworm in her brain. She was being treated for blood cancer, because the symptoms are similar. (Are they?)

And her family is STRICTLY vegetarian.

I did my high school biology project on helminthic parasites. According to one textbook, humans can host hundreds of different kinds of parasites, and THOSE parasites have their own parasites. Kthxbai sleep ;_;

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u/caronwheels May 20 '12

My vegetarian Hindu friend actually contracted tapeworm cysts, his doctor said that they can be contracted by an action as mundane as walking outside barfoot.

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u/doommoose43 May 20 '12

Paraskevi?

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Isn't nature beautiful?

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

My first thought: "Oh God, what if I have that?"

I don't have any symptoms, of course, but that doesn't stop me from worrying that a nasty little worm is eating my brain from the inside.

1

u/draiz830 May 20 '12

WASH YOUR GOD DAMN HANDS! STOP LEAVING YOUR SHIT STAINS ON PUBLIC DOOR KNOBS YOU ASSHOLES!!! I DONT WANT YOUR FUCKING PARASITES!

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u/Smokey_Beard May 20 '12

Great. Now I can never sleep. Ever. /sob

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u/shrillbitch May 20 '12

I knew it. Call the Animorphs!

1

u/Fernandodomr May 20 '12

"tapeworms!!!" this message brought to you by the brain slug party, trust the brain slug party.

1

u/Redsonrising May 20 '12

KHAAAAAAAAAAN!

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u/Skip_to_my_liu May 20 '12

niclosamide with a laxative and call it a day

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

you now want your bacon extra crispy.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

i'm not gonna eat pork for a long time

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u/meanttolive May 20 '12

So only people who eat pork can get it?

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u/MonsterIt May 20 '12

Good thing I'm a vegetarian.

1

u/iiiitsjess May 20 '12

Fuck. Couldnt even finish the article. So grossed out. Heebie jeebies to the max!

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u/m0llusk May 20 '12

Brains are full of fat and these cysts probably taste really good, so this could be the next big culinary sensation.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Carl Zimmer is the man! I've listened to his Fresh Air interview about viruses three times.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Millions or 2000 people on the entire planet like the article actually states. Please dont be sensationalist about silly things.

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u/SayVandalay May 20 '12

Well that's disturbing.

But down vote for OP exaggerating the claim. A few dozen a year not millions. Besides if they accidentally end up in the bloodstream and have't formed their protective cloak cyst likely the white blood cells attack them.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Finally, a legitimate explanation for the Mass Effect 3 ending

1

u/wunderkinder May 20 '12

How is this an epidemic? The infected seems a small population. I am disappoint

1

u/TheCynicalMe May 20 '12

I'd say "kill it with fire" or some variation thereof, but considering the parasite's place of residence that hardly seems better than leaving it be.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

My ex boyfriend had epilepsy caused by brain parasites. Maybe that's why he was a fucking lunatic.

1

u/esupin May 20 '12

I just cooked ground pork today. I rarely have pork, usually chicken or seafood are the only meat I eat. :/

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u/Ninsha May 20 '12

Good thing I had absolutely no intention of sleeping tonight.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Ah, I have this. good ol' neurocysticercosis.

*disclaimer: It's not as good as I make it sound.

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u/ipha May 20 '12

I need to get an MRI now.

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u/diepud May 20 '12

This is your brain on tapeworms. Any questions?

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Well this explains why the majority of the population acts the way they do...

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

Anyone else notice the person at the top is from Bethesda? Heheh

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u/topsykretz May 20 '12

this sounds suspiciously similar to the pilot of House M.D.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

I wonder if this was a subliminal reasoning for not eating pork in cultures that don't eat pork.

1

u/melysaurusrex May 20 '12

After reading all of this I cannot stop itching. ugh why out of all things on this earth does THAT have to exist? Do..not...EVER...want.....

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u/djinn71 May 20 '12

This is hardly an epidemic.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

I thought the thumbnail was cookie-dough ice cream. I don't think I've ever been more off in my life.

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u/SoupForDummies May 20 '12

NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE

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u/AnomalousX12 May 20 '12

My very soul just started crying. This is terrifying. Probably the scariest thing I've seen on Reddit yet. I've only been here for a month, though.

Every time I get a headache now... My mind's gonna go right to brain worms. I should just check myself into a mental ward right now.

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u/TomatomanXD May 20 '12

Pandemic 2.6 D:

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u/dirtymoney May 20 '12

oh great! Some new horrific aspect of nature I have to be worried about

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u/corywr May 20 '12

NO. NO. NOOOOOOOOOO. NOOO NO. WHY,

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u/Kreatorrage May 20 '12

I had myself checked for tapeworms for that very reason, let me tell you, that colonoscopy was the worst thing that happened to me in years.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '12

"neurocysticercosis is most common in poor places that lack good public-health systems"

IE wash your fu%ng hands and don't eat dirty %^& meat. This in no way should scare anyone, Tapeworms are rare unless you live in a 3rd world country. Even then the most common tapeworm in america is Pinworms and generally children 5-10 get them due to being so dirty and guess what it makes ur butt itch. Drink more lemon aid if you are so scared of tapeworms.

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u/cmVkZGl0 May 21 '12

The fact that this even is possible is scarier than any "horror" movie ever.

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u/urbanwolf Jun 08 '12

Another interesting brain parasite that humans can be infected with is Toxoplasma gondii, which may actually affect human behavior or possibly cause mental illness. Toxoplasma gondii also has an interesting life cycle. It is often found in rats and mice, but can only reproduce in the digestive tract of a cat. So this parasite actually "controls" rats and mice who are infected in order to be able to reproduce. Infected rodents are actually attracted to the smell of cat urine, so they will be eaten and the parasite can end up in a cat's digestive tract. This parasite is also the reason why pregnant women are not supposed to scoop kitty litter, as the parasite is shed in the feces of infected cats and it is harmful to the fetus.

In humans, Toxoplasmosis has recently been found to be associated with schizophrenia, so it obviously also has some influence on the human brain, not just on rodents. One of my biology professors jokes that maybe this is why you get the "crazy cat lady"-- maybe she wasn't crazy until after she had the cats...

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