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Hidden Epidemic: Tapeworms Living Inside People's Brains
- debacle 14y agoWell, thank goodness I'm already done with lunch. This article was truly terrifying.
- CodeCube 14y agoGood god, that is horrifying. Did I miss it, or did the article not say how one contracts this? I think I'll steer clear of the pork chops today.
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoYou missed it, though it wasn't explicit: >"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.)" They link Wikipedia which is no more explicit: >"They are infected by eating undercooked pork that contains viable cysticerci."
- yaix 14y agoThat's why every pork that is slaughtered will be inspected by a vetarinarian who is looking for these eggs (little white balls). I remember, when I was a kid, my grandparents had pigs on their farm and when they slaughtered one once a year, some dude with a microscope would come the next day, check it and put a stamp on it. And I am pretty sure that it is the initial reason why some religions are not allowed to eat pork, a smart move 2k years ago, when there were no microscopes around.
- georgieporgie 14y agoAnd I am pretty sure that it is the initial reason why some religions are not allowed to eat pork In anthropology class, we were told that bone records showed the domestication of pigs, a subsequent explosion in pig population, then a sudden disappearance. The most likely explanation, we were told, was that pigs competed with humans for resources.
- udp 14y agoEven the thought of eating cooked cysts is enough to put me off pork.
- Turing_Machine 14y agoI'd recommend avoiding this, then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels
- cstejerean 14y agoThat's how to get regular tapeworms that end up in the intestine. To get cysts in the brain the process is slightly different: "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. When the egg hatches, the confused larva does not develop into an adult in the human’s intestines. Instead, it acts as it would inside a pig. It burrows into the person’s bloodstream and gets swept through the body. Often those parasites end up in the brain, where they form cysts."
- option_greek 14y agoAnd more importantly you don't need to eat pork to get them.
- bryze 14y agoSeems like avoiding undercooked pork and fecal contamination should do it.
- shimsham 14y agoeuwwww
- liamondrop 14y ago* puts down sandwich * backs away slowly * forward article to office, so they understand what I must now do * reaches for flamethrower...
- shaggyfrog 14y agoAs the writhing, teeming mass of mindworms swarmed over the outer perimeter, we saw the defenders recoil in horror. "Stay calm! Use your flame guns!" shouted the commander, but to no avail. It is well know that the Mind Worm Boil uses psychic terror to paralyze its prey, and then carefully implants ravenous larvae into the brains of its still-conscious victims. Even with the best weapons, only the most disciplined troops can resist this horrific attack.
- fein 14y agoSo I take it that this means we all have to align ourselves with Gaia's Stepdaughters?
- yaix 14y agoThere is a BBC documentary called "Parasites" about the topic. It includes some cases of cysts and other larvae in the brain, and many more interesting cases of animals living inside humans.
- niels_olson 14y agoThe odds of a hacker in the US developing neurocysticercosis is approximately nil. If you would like to promote a slightly more relevant topic for your compadres, please consider upvoting my letter to a patient: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3982796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3982796
- niels_olson 14y agosigh
- ufo 14y agoDid it ever happen to you that there are also hackers outside the US?
- earl 14y agoOh my fucking god. I need an MRI. stat.
- antr 14y agoI read a very similar article not that long ago, and forwarded it to my dad who is a surgeon. He said that tapeworms are very common in developing nations, specially Asia and South America. In "99.9%" of the cases the eggs are digested or the cyst shows up in an organ causing relatively low damage with "easy" extraction possible. Unfortunately, some of those eggs/worms can find their way into the head. His advice was to cook all meats (be it pork, steak, etc.) well, and to avoid eating raw/uncooked meat. Apparently it reduces the chances of eating a living egg. No more medium-rare burgers for me since then.
- idleloops 14y agoCheck out Carl Zimmer's book: Parasite Rex and his columns for more of the same.
- bioli 14y agoLet's just all adopt a muslim life style, without the faith. How does one get rid of this anyway ?
- iharris 14y agoI had to pick the Swiss cheese out of my sandwich after seeing the pictures.
- OstiaAntica 14y agoCongress spends hundreds of billions bailing out banksters and auto unions, while easily solved issues like this are allowed to linger, destroying countless lives worldwide.
- bdunbar 14y agodestroying countless lives worldwide. Sure, it's a tragedy. Philosophical question - why should I pay my taxes to cure this condition 'worldwide'? This isn't polio, this isn't the 18th century. We know how people get sick, we know how to prevent this problem. Everyone does. This isn't something money can fix - this is a cultural problem.
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoUmm... actually... the reappearance of such "Third World problems" as tapeworms, bed-bugs, and other parasites in America has become a major issue. Congress does need to allocate money towards keeping our nation parasite-free.
- bdunbar 14y agoI disagree it's become a major issue. A problem, yes, but exaggerated by better reporting and invasive media. We don't need to throw money at it, and certainly not at the Federal level. Because this isn't some kind of new thing, it's a people that have gotten lazy about public health and forgotten how awful epidemics can be. It is - just like tape worm in the brain, a cultural problem, not something that money can fix.
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoI wouldn't say people have gotten lazy. Somehow you just can't prefurnish an apartment or buy used furniture anymore if it involves upholstery, because bed-bugs have returned. I don't know whose "laziness" that is.
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- Spoom 14y agoIf you're on the east coast like I am, the timing of this article is perfect. notes to cook pork a little beyond the recommended temperature in future
- tocomment 14y agoWhy wouldn't the blood-brain barrier prevent this?
- mietek 14y agoMy question as well.
- Lexarius 14y agoThe larva has to burrow into the bloodstream to begin with. Maybe it just waits until it gets stuck somewhere, and then burrows into the surrounding tissue?
- ufo 14y agoThe blood brain barrier is for microscopic stuff. The tapeworm larvae, on the other hand, is a big multicelular mofo and it can burrow itself into brain tissue just like it can burrow itself into muscle/pork.
- brlewis 14y agoI couldn't find the "epidemic" part of this article. Is there one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic In epidemiology, an epidemic (επί (epi)- meaning "upon or above" and δήμος (demos)- meaning "people"), occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- OstiaAntica 14y agoThis pathology is NOT caught from eating pork. It can come from any food prepared by someone atypically shedding eggs (most likely someone from Latin America.) In fact you are more likely to get it from eating raw salad than cooked pork. "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."
- ufo 14y agoI find it interesting that, while we learn all of this in school here in Brazil people in developing countries have no idea about parasites. (but dont single out latinamerica - tapeworms are endemic in most of the developing world) Anyway, if you are interested, it is also possible to get other types of tapeworm from other kinds of uncooked meat (like raw beef or sushi), although only the pork tapeworm is known to cause cysticercosis in humans.
- dguaraglia 14y ago1.5k to 2k people in a country the size of the US is hardly an 'epidemic'.