parasites

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Third World Parasite May Be Thriving in Rural Alabama

Small study finds alarmingly high prevalence of hookworm

(Newser) - Hookworm is a disease more commonly associated with third-world countries, but a small study out of Alabama suggests it has a disturbingly strong foothold in the US. The study by the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine focused on rural Lowndes County, reports the Guardian . The...

Germany Considers Sale of Parasitic Worm Eggs ... as Food

Thousands of people around the world already take them

(Newser) - Let's get one thing straight: Parasitic worms can and do cause serious problems in the animals they infect, and it's largely seen as a good thing that most humans in wealthier nations don't have to deal with them. Hookworms, for instance, cause anemia, diarrhea, and pain, while...

Doctors Warn of Painful Parasite Hiding in Your Sushi

Cases of anisakiasis are on the rise in the West

(Newser) - Beware your next Seattle roll ; doctors say it could contain something that should never be found in sushi (besides cream cheese): a "worm-like" parasite. A paper published Thursday in BMJ Case Reports says cases of anisakiasis are on the rise in the West due to the increasing popularity of...

Brain-Infecting Worm Booming in Popular Vacation Destination

Sharp uptick in cases of rat lungworm disease on Maui

(Newser) - A parasitic worm that infects people's brains is turning up more frequently on Maui, and Hawaiian officials are getting worried. "It’s like having a slow-moving bullet go through your brain," says state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park, per the AP , explaining the effects of rat lungworm disease....

From Guy&#39;s Mouth, Doc Pulls Longest Tapeworm He&#39;s Ever Seen


From Guy's Mouth,
Doc Pulls Longest
Tapeworm He's
Ever Seen
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 29, 2017 5:40 PM CST

From Guy's Mouth, Doc Pulls Longest Tapeworm He's Ever Seen

Picture a clown's endless scarf gag ... but with a tapeworm

(Newser) - If you have anti-nausea medication handy, you might want to grab it. Doctors are telling of a remarkable medical case in which they had to a remove a 6-foot-long tapeworm from a man's gut by pulling it through his mouth. Live Science explains that the 48-year-old patient from India...

From 3.5M Cases to Just 25: a Disease Nearly Vanquished

Jimmy Carter's efforts to fight Guinea worm disease have left just 3 countries affected

(Newser) - Jimmy Carter, who's been working for decades to eradicate Guinea worm disease, says only 25 human cases of the illness were reported worldwide in 2016. When the Carter Center joined the battle to eliminate Guinea worm disease in the mid-1980s, there were about 3.5 million cases in 21...

Tapeworm Thought to Be Only in Asian Salmon Found in US

'They're wild animals. They're going to have parasites'

(Newser) - It turns out that a parasite thought to be confined to fish from Asia is in fish around the US, too. Researchers identified the Japanese broad tapeworm, aka Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense , in wild pink salmon caught off Alaska, they report in a study in the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal....

'I Dodged All Those Bullets, Then Get Killed by a Fish': Vietnam Vet

Veterans afflicted with rare cancer brought on by fish-borne parasite

(Newser) - They were the lucky ones who managed to make it home from Vietnam. Now, a half-century later, some veterans are finding out they, too, are victims of the war. The enemy is a known killer in parts of Asia: parasites ingested in raw or poorly cooked river fish, the AP...

Deadly Parasitic Creature Spreading Through S. Florida

Invasive New Guinea flatworm has migrated from Miami to southwest coast

(Newser) - You may think you can avoid coming into contact with the New Guinea flatworm by simply not visiting New Guinea, but the critter is closer to home than you might guess. Per the Palm Beach Post , the potentially deadly parasite is proliferating throughout South Florida, slithering from where it was...

Girl's 'Appendicitis' Turns Out to Be Worms

Doctors got quite the surprise during her appendectomy

(Newser) - A teenager in the UK who showed up at a hospital's pediatric unit complaining of stomach pain ended up getting an appendectomy—but it was something else entirely that had caused her distress, per an article in BMJ Case Reports . Doctors weren't 100% sure that the 15-year-old had...

They&#39;re Desperate for Relief. So They&#39;re Ingesting Worms
 They're Desperate for Relief. 
 So They're Ingesting Worms 
in case you missed it
Jun 19, 2016 7:03 AM CDT

They're Desperate for Relief. So They're Ingesting Worms

New York Times explores the 'helminth' movement

(Newser) - The idea of heading to Tijuana and returning with a hookworm infection might sound like a nightmare, but a growing number of people are going out of their way to deliberately inflict that fate on themselves—all in the name of better heath. A feature in the New York Times ...

20-Foot Tapeworm Found Living Inside Man
 20-Foot Tapeworm 
 Found Living Inside 
 Raw-Beef-Loving Man 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 24, 2016 8:01 AM CST

20-Foot Tapeworm Found Living Inside Raw-Beef-Loving Man

He lost up to 22 pounds in three days

(Newser) - Squeamish readers be warned: The South China Morning Post reports a Chinese man was recently found to have a 20-foot tapeworm living inside his intestines. According to Live Science , the 38-year-old man went to the doctor last spring after losing up to 22 pounds over the course of three days....

Parasitic Worm May Make Women More Fertile

Women infected have an average of 2 more kids than others

(Newser) - A roundworm infection is bad news for a number of reasons, but it's possibly a bonus if you're trying to get pregnant. In a nine-year study that one fertility scientist says raises the possibility of "novel fertility-enhancing drugs," researchers analyzed 986 Tsimane indigenous women in Bolivia,...

This Disfiguring Disease Has Crossed the US Border

Cases of the tropical disease are cropping up in Texas and Oklahoma

(Newser) - A sometimes lethal parasitic disease that can leave its victims with crater-like ulcers and grayish skin tones has never much bothered those within the confines of the US—until now. Between 2000 and 2007, 13 autochthonous cases—meaning victims contracted it here, as opposed to while traveling elsewhere—of leishmaniasis...

Drug's Price Changed From $13.50 a Tablet to $750

Daraprim move doesn't go over well

(Newser) - "This isn't the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business. It really doesn't make sense to get any criticism for this." The "this" Martin Shkreli is referring to is the price hike his company instituted after it...

Your Cat Could Be Clawing at Your Mental Health
Your Cat Could Be Clawing
at Your Mental Health
NEW STUDY
Jun 10, 2015 7:29 AM CDT

Your Cat Could Be Clawing at Your Mental Health

Cat parasite may boost risk of schizophrenia, other mental illnesses

(Newser) - Cat owners, beware: A parasite found in feline feces could not only make you physically sick, but also mentally so, according to new research . Cats carry a parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii, which can be passed to humans through feces. As many as 60 million Americans may carry the parasite,...

Meet the Parasites That Suck Mosquitoes' Blood

Culicoid midges can hang onto hosts for days

(Newser) - Next time you're annoyed by a tenacious mosquito, you can take solace in the fact that it, too, has to deal with parasites who want to suck its blood. And, as Jennifer Frazer points out in Scientific American , the mosquito has no way of slapping the tiny creature known...

Beluga Whales Infected With Cat Parasite

Poses health threat to Inuits

(Newser) - The Toxoplasma gondii parasite, carried by cats, can cause rats to stop fearing the felines; in humans, it can cause blindness. Now, beluga whales in the Arctic have been discovered to have the parasite—and researchers fear it could infect the people who eat them. "The only way to...

Richard III Had Bad Case of Roundworms

Researchers find evidence of intestinal parasite infection

(Newser) - Since digging up the skeleton of Richard III , scientists have been able to determine what he looked like , how he was buried ... and, most recently, what was going on in his bowels. It seems the king had a roundworm infection when he died, the Independent reports. Researchers compared a soil...

Dust Mites Reverse Evolution, Shock Scientists

Parasites de-specialized in order to survive, study says

(Newser) - Think our evolutionary progress is irreversible? Researchers at the University of Michigan say tiny house dust mites evolved from organisms that specialized and later de-specialized in order to survive over millions of years, Phys.Org reports. The large-scale genetic study, published in Systematic Biology , challenges one of the basic suppositions...

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