4 ms·
Correction: 350,000 years being riddled with parasites, fending off wild animal attacks, and avoiding being eaten alive by cannibals when your tribe runs out of
by oceanplexian 6mo ago
Correction: 350,000 years being riddled with parasites, fending off wild animal attacks, and avoiding being eaten alive by cannibals when your tribe runs out of food.
- justonceokay 6mo agoParasites are my main go-to when I meet someone complaining about the modern world. In the history of multicellular organisms on earth, only (some) humans—and only in the last ~100 years—have had the luxury of not being completely infested with parasites. Even now we have more parasites than we probably know or care to admit.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoThis was / is likely a factor in the "kernel of truth" with the whole "deworming tablets cure covid-19" thing, the chances of survival of people in certain areas infected with the virus increased if they were administered deworming medication because they also had a parasitic infection.
- justonceokay 6mo agoYes my friend took ivermectin recently because he grew up in he Virgin Islands and realized he had likely been harboring parasites his whole adult life. I don’t know if it is placebo but his eating habits changed significantly after his dose
- davidkuennen 6mo agoAnd just like that we just learned that parasites may have been good for us [1] [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8162934/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8162934/
- sehansen 6mo agoThe fact that low-grade parasite-infections dampen autoimmune diseases isn't that big of a win. Presumably our immune system is as aggressive as it is in part due to the parasite-load our ancestors were exposed to.
- gobdovan 6mo agoWe solved the parasite problem and at the same time changed the ecology we were accustomed to. The irony of dynamic systems.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]