Parasites

Sources

• Riverside Interview - Noah Ryan Interview
• The Noah Ryan Podcast - Parasites, Heavy Metals and Minerals
• JRE - How a Parasitic Disease Created the “Lazy Southerner” Stereotype
• Medical News Today - What to know about parasite infection in humans
• WEHImovies - ‘Hijacking’ and hibernating parasite could alter brain behaviour
• SciShow Psych - Toxoplasmosis: How Parasites in Your Cat Can Infect Your Brain
• Science.org - ‘Win-win-win’ strategy reduces dangerous parasite infections in African villages
• Skinny Confidential Podcast - How To Rid Your Body Of Parasites & Foundational Health Advice For Optimal Health - Chervin Jafarieh
• CBS - CDC warns of common parasites plaguing millions in U.S.
• National Library of Medicine - History of Human Parasitology
• Books & Books - Kathleen McAuliffe This Is Your Brain on Parasites How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and
• Science Direct - How major fungal infections can initiate severe autoimmune diseases
• The Guardian - Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet

Noah Ryan Interview

• We have a symbiotic relationship with parasites
• We have symbiotic relationships with the bacteria in our gut, on our skin, you know, pretty much everywhere around us. If it weren't for those bacteria, we would not be alive. So those microbes are not parasites.
• Symptoms of parasites
• Yeah, well, you know, yeah, and, you know, different parasites have different symptomology. They're going to have different effects on you as an organism. A lot of the common side effects are digestive issues. You know, people are just unable to digest anything. They have ravenous appetites. They have horrible fatigue. They have weird, you know, CNS issues and nervous system issues, whether it's neuropathy or even tinnitus.
• Brain fog is a really common cause, or excuse me, a really common symptom as well, and skin issues. So I had horrible digestion. I was always hungry, but anytime I'd eat, I would just get so bloated. Like I just, I couldn't digest anything.
• I just had a horrible brain fog. I couldn't focus for the life of me. I was chronically like underlyingly anxious, which I normally am not. And you just feel miserable. And you know, a lot of that is your body actively trying to fight these organisms and actively being in a state of toxicity.
• Um, so that was kind of the biggest issue for me. One of the biggest things that I noticed as well was horrible skin issues. I just had like inexplicable acne and like really dry skin. A lot of people get eczema or psoriasis or things like that, or, you know, dandruff and a lot of that can be brought down or brought back to parasites. 
• Brain fog caused by parasites
• And additionally, if you're releasing a lot of inflammatory cytokines to, you know, have a proper immune response, a lot of that inflammation is going to occur in areas that, you know, may be unsavory like the brain. And we know that there's a very strong link between inflammation and depression. So I think that was a really big factor for me. That was probably the most intolerable aspect is just constantly having that low line brain fog and irritability.
• Parasites carry heavy metals
• And you know, parasites carry with them a lot of comorbidities because they can hold, you know, 10 times their body weight and heavy metals and slowly
• Most cultures have a bi-annual parasite cleanse
• Most cultures have a biannual parasite cleanse. They just do it as a preventative measure because it is so ubiquitous. And there's so many ways that you can get it. It's in the water, they can be in the water, in food, in really anything. So there's a very high chance that you are at least exposed to parasites and that you've consumed parasites. Now the question is, were those parasites able to burrow into your tissues and survive that initial anti-parasitic mechanism, which is our digestion?
• Parasites are rampant because we have low stomach acid
• I believe that parasitic infections are more ubiquitous today because I do not believe that our natural mechanisms are as strong as they once were. And when I say these natural mechanisms, I'm talking about the salivary enzymes that we have that are very strong anti-path, like anti-microbials, our stomach acid. One of the reasons that our stomach acid is so acidic is because it's meant to be inhospitable for unwelcome guests and unwelcome microbes.
• Sugar doesn’t necessarily feed parasites
• Well, sugar feeds cells, right? Like our cells feed on sugar. Like we could not exist without sugar. So it's not that clear cut. Things that feed healthy cells also feed healthy cells or unhealthy cells, right? Things that feed good organisms, oftentimes also feed bad organisms. I really think it comes down like,parasites are gonna be feeding off of whatever you give them. 
• Unbound iron can feed parasites
• Now, there are certain things that can contribute to pathogenic growth, right? I think iron, excess unbound iron is something that I find very problematic. And we're getting so much of this iron in fortified foods. And it's not the bioavailable type of iron that we can consume, but it's this iron that's left over for these microbes to consume, whether parasitic or more importantly, like bacterial.
• Digestive issues can tell you you have parasites
• You know, hunger, leptin, essentially leptin and ghrelin insensitivity, so the hunger and satiety hormones. I think digestion, indigestion is a really big one. Infrequency of bowel movements and stool quality, that's a really big factor to look at. So there's a giant list of symptoms to look at. What you should really be looking at is looking back at your experiences and your life and saying, where would I be exposed to bacteria?
• You can breathe in bacteria from cat poo
• there's bacteria in a funny one, toxoplasmosis, you know, that comes primarily from, you know, cat feces. So a lot of people who own cats and they clean out the litter box, they have a lot higher rate of this particularly neurotoxic, uh, parasite, but that should be something you look at, like, do you eat raw fish?
• If you eat raw meat you can get parasites
• Have you eaten raw meat? You know, like undercooked meat, which we all have. Have you been in particularly tropical environments where parasites a little bit more ubiquitous and then kind of go down that and.
• Don’t eat fortified foods and optimize nutrition
• Food written with pesticides, by not consuming some of these fortified foods that have these non-bi-available forms of minerals like iron or even folic acid that are going to further contribute to pathogenic growth. And I think most importantly, optimizing for baseline nutrition to make sure that those natural mechanisms have the building blocks they need to function properly.
• Live in a low stress environment
• lowering stress and we think about stress as like work stress, right, as psychological stress. But when I say stress, I just mean any detractors to our health. Electromagnetic frequencies are something that I personally look at. I definitely notice a difference because I live in somewhere that has very low EMF. It's a very low EMF environment. They don't have, they have 3G, you know, not even 4G, LTE or 5G. And, you know, I'm not just surrounded by Wi-Fi routers. So I think that's a factor as well.
• Plant medicine as a ritual to cleanse parasites
• Like plant medicines, like ayahuasca, those were naturally and initially used as purging agents for that purpose. That's why they make you throw up. That's why they make you kind of just flush everything. So I think there's a lot of natural things that you can use on a gradual basis.
• Ivermectin
•  But one of the best selling pharmaceutical drugs out there is ivermectin. And they want to paint it as a horse to a suitable for human consumption.
• Herbs for parasites
• And there's so many, you know, black walnuts, a big one. Oregano oil is one of my personal favorites. I just think that if you really think you're dealing with a parasitic infection, you should do the research and do it right and really kind of understand it from top to bottom.
• Parasites hold toxins, you need to make sure your liver is functioning
• Yeah, it's a pharmaceutical agent. You know, it's a synthetic drug and it essentially alters the proteins that you know, parasites need to, to function, right? It alters the enzymes that parasites needs to function. So it slowly kills off parasites. Um, now the issue with killing off any, you know, uh, pathogenic organ, or excuse me, uh, pathogenic organism is that they have a toxin load, right? As I mentioned, parasites hold up to 10 times their body weight in heavy metals. So you kill off that parasite, you're gonna be releasing a lot of those toxins back into your system. Or say you dislodge a parasite from its tissue, it has the opportunity to go and relaunch into a different tissue. So it's important to, whenever you're doing any form of this, make sure that your primary step, stage one and stage two detox functions are operating properly, right?
• Avoid alcohol when cleansing
• So obviously avoiding detractors, right? One of those detractors is gonna be alcohol. That's gonna be having just suboptimal nutrition in general. I personally take liver boosting herbs like Tudka, which is one of my personal favorites.
• Take a binding agent
• So that's step number one. And then step number two is using binding agents. So these agents that essentially have the capability to absorb some of these toxins, they have like really high surface area, things like zeolite clay.
• like Xypnezolite, Petsonite clay, activated charcoal, which is my personal favorite, and that's gonna bind up some of these endotoxins and help you safely excrete those.
• The more mineral deficiencies you have the more likely heavy metals will collect in your body
• and how you look at the relationship between heavy metals and ferrous metals. Yeah, so heavy metals also are a huge problem, right? And a lot of that's because of our suboptimal mineral statuses. Heavy metals are very similar in ionomic structure to minerals. So if you have mineral deficiencies, the chances of those heavy metals getting lodged in your tissues are more likely. \
• Parasites hold onto heavy metals
• But you know, the issue with parasites is, as I mentioned, parasites can hold onto heavy metals. So we don't absorb all the heavy metals that we consume, right, like you eat a tuna with mercury, not 100% of that mercury is gonna be absorbed by you. And the better that your mineral status is, the less heavy metals you'll hopefully absorb. These parasites will latch onto those, right? So if you have parasites in your gut and these heavy metals are being consumed, those parasites will hold onto those heavy metals more than your own tissues will. 
• So those will slowly leach back into your tissues. And additionally, if you were to kill off that parasite, then those heavy metals are gonna be released as well, which is why you need those binding agents.
• Support digestion and eat proper nutrition
• So if you are having issues with digestion, if you are doing things that are damaging your gut, think twice about that. If you aren't prioritizing nutrient density and having really solid dietary foundations, think twice about that as well. And that's gonna save you a lot of time and trouble and gonna reduce your chances. And most importantly, it's gonna enable you to have more freedom in your actions. I feel very comfortable having raw seafood almost every, not every, every week at the very least, where with most people, if they were to eat that same food, some of them would invariably get sick.
• Colostrum for gut health
• Well, colostrum's primary mechanism is being incredible for fortifying your gut health, right? So rebalancing your gut and subsequently your digestive system. So a lot of it is that preventative mechanism is going to make you more resilient and colostrum really is, is in my opinion, one of the closer things I've seen to a panacea, uh, for its abilities to induce IGF-1 insulin like growth factor. So it's incredibly anabolic. Um, it's incredibly healing, but in terms of parasites in particular, it does seem to do a pretty beneficial job at bolstering your immune system, right? Because what colostrum is, is it's the first milk that's released from a ruminant animal, like a goat or like a cow, for their child. And the primary focus and reason that this milk is special is because that is the milk that is going to populate and fortify that new calf or that new baby goat's immune system. And it has the same similar function with us in humans. So we've seen colostrum used a lot for, you know, persistent viral infections. We've seen colostrum used a lot for fungal infections, bacterial infections, and parasitic infections also fall in that bucket.

Parasites, Heavy Metals and Minerals

• Minerals are super important for health
• I think minerals are one of the biggest keys to address to help people optimize their health to heal on every level.
• We are exposed to toxic metals, so certain minerals are important right now to counteract
• And these, you know, lesser talked about minerals that are super crucial in a time where were exposed to halogens like fluoride chlorine bromide, do you know, heavy metals that require these minerals to keep our body detoxified of those other elements.
• You can overdo parasite cleansing
• But like you said, I think if the body is not ready to detox and you start killing these parasites, and they're releasing all their toxins in there and you're not your detox Pathways aren't up and you could actually get worse and then you get the herxheimer effect and all that all the like so, Yeah, a long story short, I did a long period of De parasite cleansing.
• How to get rid of parasites
• ​​I was in like subtropical environments a lot.I eat a lot of raw fish.I eat a lot of very rare meat, so that was something I had to consider as well and then incorporating anti-parasitic herbs.Oregano oil, neem, wormwood black, walnut garlic.

What to know about parasite infection in humans

• Symptoms of parasite infection
• If a person is experiencing a skin rash, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or other symptoms of a parasitic infection, they should speak with their doctor.
• Three main types of parasites
• Protozoa: Protozoa parasites are single-celled organisms. Protozoa can only multiply, or divide, within the host.
• Helminths: These are worm parasites. They are typically visible to the naked eye at their adult stage. Unlike protozoa, they cannot multiply in humans.
• Ectoparasites: These live on rather than in their hosts. They include lice, fleas, and mosquitos.
• You can get parasites through mosquitoes
• The Anopheles mosquito carries this bloodborne parasite and transmits it through biting humans. There are five types of plasmodium that can cause malaria, and there were an estimated 241 million cases of the disease in 2020.
• You can get parasites from tap water
• This tiny ameba can affect the eyes, skin, and brain. It exists all over the world in water and soil. Individuals can become infected if they clean contact lenses with tap water.
• You can get parasites through sexually transmitted disease
• Also known as “trich,” this is a sexually transmitted infection (STI). It is the result of the parasite Trichomonas vaginalis. It affects the female urogenital tract. It can exist in males, but usually without symptoms.
• Roundworm can come from food and drink
• Ascariasis, or a roundworm infection, does not usually cause symptoms, but the worm may be visible in feces. It enters the body through food or drink.
• Hookworm can enter through the skin!
• These can cause intestinal disease. Hookworms lay eggs in the soil, and the larvae can penetrate the skin of humans. Early symptoms include itching and a rash.
• You can get parasites through animal interaction
• A roundworm transmits this infection from animals to humans. It affects the eyes, brain, and liver. Nearly 5%of people in the U.S. have antibodies, suggesting that millions have been in contact with the infection.
• You can get parasites from eating raw meat
• Taeniasis occurs due to the presence of taenia tapeworms in the intestines. People may ingest these tapeworms by eating undercooked beef or pork. Taeniasis also causes cysticercosis, one of the most common parasitic infections in the U.S.
• Parasites from unwashed produce
• Also known as trichuriasis, whipworms live in the large intestine and lay eggs. The body passes these eggs out in feces. Humans can become infected when ingesting the eggs, for example, on unwashed fruit or vegetables. It is common across the world.

How a Parasitic Disease Created the “Lazy Southerner” Stereotype

• Parasites can affect the brain
• 00:15: The southern stereotype is caused by a parasite
• 00:30: People in south walked around barefoot and the parasite got in.
• 01:13: Hookworm in the south affected people's brains and caused them to have hunchbacks.
• 02:20: Parasites can kill!
• 02:50: A parasite affected the way people talk.

‘Hijacking’ and hibernating parasite could alter brain behaviour

• Parasites can alter behavior
• ​​00:37: A parasite from undercooked meat can change your behavior
• 01:30: It might change the behavior of brain cells.

Toxoplasmosis: How Parasites in Your Cat Can Infect Your Brain

• Parasite in cats can make people crazy
• 00:28: There's a parasite that's only found in cats called Toxoplasma gondii and it can make people crazy.
• Parasites hid in your body
• 01:25: When parasites get into your system, they can hide in cysts.
• 01:35: 1/3 of humans have toxoplasmosis without knowing it. 
• You can pass parasites onto your baby
• 01:50: Pregnant women can pass the parasites onto her baby.
• Parasites can cause mental illness
• 02:10: Women with parasites have higher risk of depression, anxiety and self harm later in life. 
• 02:40: Can affect dopamine levels.
• 03:00: T. gondii can also mess up GLT-1 which transports glutamate. This leads to glutamate build up and can cause ALS, MS and Alzheimers.
• 03:50: Infected mice are less afraid of cats and get eaten more often.

How To Rid Your Body Of Parasites & Foundational Health Advice For Optimal Health - Chervin Jafarieh

• Parasites can control your mind
• 05:50: Decision making can be run by parasites
• 05:55: The Toxoplasmosis parasite in cats makes people promiscuous. It makes the rat chase the cat.
• 10:05: Parasites create confusion in the body.
• 35:45: If you have parasites you're gonna be sucking energy from people.
• 37:25: Parasites can make you crave sugar
• Parasites are everywhere
• 06:10: Parasites are ancient.
• 06:20: 30-40% of the world is infected by toxoplasmosis.
• How you can pick up parasites
• 06:30: You can get parasites from raw foods, walking barefoot, a cat.
• 10:30: You can pick up parasites from kissing people, sharing food etc...sitting on toilet seat. 
• They embed in your body
• 06:48: They embed in the liver and brain, this is real! this is not pseudoscience. 
• 13:05: They're all different sizes
• Medical system doesn’t understand it
• 07:53: We're getting all these symptoms from parasites, but the mainstream medical field is calling it chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune etc...can lead to death.
• 47:10: Apendix bursts, doctors say it just happens but it's really because of parasites
• Signs you have a parasite
• 08:45: How to know if you have a parasite? The whites of your eyes might turn red, brittle hair, dry skin, can't gain weight, irregular heartbeat, 
• Everyone has them
• 00:09:17 : 09:20: Everyone has parasites.
• Having a strong immune system is important
• 11:15: If you have a strong system, you can erradicate them easily.
• 11:40: When your system weakens, parasites will start to burrow in the body.
• 12:40: Strong immune system and oral health is huge to prevent parasites.
• Parasites in mouth
• 12:50: Dentists can find parasites burrowed in your mouth.
• They destroy health
• 14:00: You're not supposed to be sick all the time.
• 14:55: You can't be low stress if you have parasites in the body that's keeping you awake at night.
• 39:20: Parasites rob you of oxygen
• 45:55: Lyme likes going into the brain because of the nerve tissue
• 46:15: MS can be caused by overburden of parasites.
• How to get rid of them
• 15:10: You need to be properly hydrated, mineralized, good hygiene, 
• 16:00: Cleansing is very important, we live in a dirty world.
• 20:55: Saunas to detox and cleanse, sweating. Also hydration which helps push things out.
• 21:10: Taking charcoal everyday can help pull toxins out. 
• 21:30: Making sure you're not constipated because that's how you release toxins.
• 32:25: First step is to make sure you're low stress. And build hydrochloric acid by not drinking alkaline water.
• 34:09: Eat a lot of fermented food.
• 35:20: Simple sugars, denatured sugar feeds parasites.
• Autoimmune disorders caused by parasites
• 29:30: All these autoimmune disorders are really cause of parasites.
• Some parasites are good, some bad
• 32:10: Some parasites are symbiotic in nature and fine, most are not.
• Parasites eat junk
• 38:35: Parasites love eating junk food
• 53:10: Full moon affects parasites

‘Win-win-win’ strategy reduces dangerous parasite infections in African villages

• Flatworms causing liver cancer
• Tiny parasites can have huge consequences. Flatworms belonging to the genus Schistosoma infect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing pain and weakness, stunting the growth and cognitive development of children, and, in some people, leading to liver disease or cancer.
• Parasites can burrow into your skin
• The parasites known as schistosomes divide their time between human hosts and water snails that thrive on the algae growing on freshwater aquatic plants. Infected people pass eggs with their urine and stool. If this happens in a pond or river, the eggs develop into larvae that infect certain snail species, in which they reproduce. Free-swimming larvae are then released from the snails into the water and when humans come into contact with the water, these larvae burrow through their skin to infect them, completing the cycle.

CDC warns of common parasites plaguing millions in U.S.

• Parasites can lead to death
• Millions of Americans develop parasitic infections and symptoms often go unnoticed or are misdiagnosed. These microscopic creatures are typically picked up through food and water. An infection can lead to serious health problems, including seizures, blindness, pregnancy complications, heart failure and even death.
• Chagas can cause heart attack
• More than 300,000 American are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease, and more than 300 infected babies are born every year. Chagas disease is transmitted through a bite from the triatomine bug, which then deposits its feces in the skin opening. Chagas disease can cause long-term digestive, cardiac and neurological complications. Death from the infection is often caused by heart attack. However, if caught early, the condition is easily cured with medication.
• Tapeworm found in brain
• This parasitic infection, caused by the taenia solium tapeworm, makes its home in human tissues such as the brain and muscles. Larval cysts from the parasite form in the body and can cause a number of complications, including seizures. There are at least 1,000 hospitalizations for cysticercosis per year in the U.S. This tapeworm infection is often the result of eating uncooked pork that contains larval cysts.
• Toxoplasma gondii can cause birth defects
• Toxoplasma is often called the "cat poop parasite," since it's frequently caused by close contact with a friendly feline. In the U.S., more than 60 million people are chronically infected with toxoplasma gondii. The parasite is also found in undercooked meat and even some unwashed fruits and vegetables. Health experts say toxoplasma can put pregnant women at risk for birth defects. Symptoms of this parasitic infection include swollen lymph nodes, muscle aches and eye complications. If left untreated these problems can become chronic.
• Some parasites can be passed as STDs
• In the U.S., trichomonias is an incredibly common and curable sexually transmitted disease, though it can also increase one's risk for developing other STDs. The protozoan parasite affects 3.7 million people in the United States. However, only about 30 percent of people will actually develop symptoms, which can include itching and burning in the genital area, pain during urination and discharge. The parasitic infection is treated successfully with prescription antibiotics.

History of Human Parasitology

• There are 300 species of parasites
• ​​Humans are hosts to nearly 300 species of parasitic worms and over 70 species of protozoa, some derived from our primate ancestors and some acquired from the animals we have domesticated or come in contact with during our relatively short history on Earth. 
• Slave trade helped parasites spread
• The slave trade, which flourished for three and a half centuries from about 1500, brought new parasites to the New World from the Old World (58); in more recent times, the spread of human immunodeficiency virus HIV and AIDS and the immunodepression associated with these conditions has resulted in the establishment of a number of new opportunistic parasitic infections throughout the world
• Parasites have been around since ancient times
• The first written records of what are almost certainly parasitic infections come from a period of Egyptian medicine from 3000 to 400 BC, particularly the Ebers papyrus of 1500 BC discovered at Thebes (29). Later, there were many detailed descriptions of various diseases that might or might not be caused by parasites, specifically fevers, in the writings of Greek physicians between 800 to 300 BC, such as the collected works of Hippocrates, known as the Corpus Hippocratorum, and from physicians from other civilizations including China from 3000 to 300 BC, India from 2500 to 200 BC, Rome from 700 BC to 400 AD, and the Arab Empire in the latter part of the first millennium.
• Germ theory discovery, that diseases are caused by bacteria and viruses
• These discoveries included the demolition of the theory of spontaneous generation and the evolution of the germ theory by Louis Pasteur, the demonstration by Pasteur that diseases could be caused by bacteria, the discovery of viruses by Pierre-Paul Emile Roux, the introduction by Robert Koch of methods of preventing diseases caused by microorganisms, and the incrimination by Patrick Manson of vectors in the transmission of parasites.
• You can eat eggs which hatch inside you
• Humans become infected when food contaminated with infective eggs is eaten and the larvae emerge in the intestine. The worms do not mature immediately but migrate around the body, reaching the lungs, from which they are coughed up and swallowed and then develop into adults in the intestine.
• How parasites live on
• Adult male and female worms live in the small intestine, where they can cause massive blood loss. Eggs pass out with the feces to contaminate the soil, where larvae emerge and molt to become infectious larvae that bore through the skin of a new host.
• Ancient symptoms of parasites
• The classical signs of hookworm disease are anemia, greenish yellow pallor, and lassitude.
• Pork usually has parasites
• Because human infections are usually acquired by eating pork infected with the encysted larvae, this might have given rise to the Mosaic and Islamic traditions of avoiding pork, a practice that has also been attributed to tapeworm infection (see below).
• The first worm discovered in a human was in 1800s
• The discovery of the worm in humans in 1835 was made by James Paget, then a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London and later knighted as a distinguished physician, but the definitive report was written by Richard Owen, who played down Paget's role (211) and did not realize that the worm in human muscle was a larval stage of a nematode. The adult worms were discovered by Rudolf Virchow in 1859 (266) and Friedrich Zenker in 1860, and it was Zenker who finally recognised the clinical significance of the infection and concluded that humans became infected by eating raw pork (136, 281). 
• Discovering that parasites enter through the skin
• The discovery that infection occurred through the skin was made by a Belgian physician, Paul Van Durme, whose studies were based on the work of Looss, mentioned above, who had shown that A. duodenale infects its host in this way (262)
• It is now thought that Van Durme was probably working with A. fuelleborni (105), but the correct mode of infection had been established, and it was Looss who later succeeded in infecting himself by putting larvae of S. stercoralis on his skin and finding larvae in his feces 64 days later (162). 
• How guinea worm disease works
• Adult worms live in subcutaneous connective tissue, from which the female worm emerges to release thousands of larvae into water, where they are eaten by intermediate hosts, cyclopodid crustaceans, in which they mature into infective larvae that infect humans when the crustaceans are accidentally swallowed with drinking water
• Tapeworms can be super long
• Humans can be infected by about 40 species of adult tapeworms and about 15 larval forms, mainly as accidental hosts (9, 46). The most important cestodes belong to two groups, the taeniid and diphyllobothriid tapeworms. The characteristic taeniid adults, which can reach a length of several meters, live in the intestine attached by a scolex and shed mature proglottids (“segments”) containing numerous eggs, which pass out into soil or water, where the eggs are released. 
• Tapeworm experiments
• In 1784, the first indications that intermediate hosts were involved in the life cycles of taeniid tapeworms emerged from the detailed studies of the pork tapeworm by a German pastor, Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who observed that the scolices of the tapeworm in humans resembled cysts in the muscle of pigs (99, 136). Some 70 years later, Küchenmeister, in much-criticized experiments, fed pig meat containing the cysticerci of T. solium to criminals condemned to death and recovered adult tapeworms from the intestine after they had been executed (143, 145, 146). Shortly afterward, in 1868 to 1869, J. H. Oliver observed that T. saginata tapeworm infections occurred in individuals who had eaten “measly” beef (207), and this was confirmed by the Italian veterinarian Edoardo Perroncito in 1877 (214).
• How amoebas continue their life cycle
• Humans harbor nine species of intestinal amoebae, of which only one, Entamoeba histolytica, is a pathogen. The life cycle is simple. The amoebae live and multiply in the gut and form cysts that are passed out in the feces and infect new individuals when they are consumed in contaminated water or food. 
• Sleeping sickness that can kill you
• African trypanosomiasis is caused by infection with two subspecies of trypanosomes, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, which causes Gambian or chronic sleeping sickness, and T. b. rhodesiense, which causes Rhodesian or acute sleeping sickness. The trypanosomes multiply in the blood and are taken up by tsetse flies when they feed. Within the tsetse fly, there is a phase of multiplication and development resulting in the formation of infective trypanosomes in the salivary glands of the fly, which are injected into a new host when the fly feeds. The infection itself causes a number of symptoms including anemia, wasting and lethargy, and, in some cases, if the parasites pass into the brain and cerebrospinal fluid, coma and death.
• T Gondii can damage fetuses
• Even then, T. gondii was largely regarded as an interesting curiosity until an association with human congenital disease was recognized in 1937 by Arne Wolf and David Cowen (277). This association was followed by the realization that T. gondii rarely causes disease even though it is a very common parasite of adults but that in pregnant women the parasite can cross the placenta and can damage the fetus. The early history of the discovery of T. gondii and toxoplasmosis is discussed by Wenyon (273) and Dubey and Beattie 
• AIDS is parasitic
• Humans are also hosts to three other species of coccidia, Isospora belli, Cryptosporidium parvum, and Cyclospora cayetanensis, that have in the past been regarded as rare and accidental curiosities but have recently been identified as pathogens in AIDS patients and other immunocompromised individuals. 
• All have simple life cycles initiated by the ingestion of oocysts followed by multiplication and spread within the intestinal cells of the host and the eventual production of sexual stages, as for T. gondii infection in cats. C. parvum was discovered in 1912 by the American parasitologist Edward Ernest Tyzzer in the gastric glands of laboratory mice in which he had previously found another species, C. muris (259). C. parvum is not very host specific, and the first cases in humans were recorded in 1976 independently by Nime (203) and Meisel (186). From 1981 onward, numerous new cases began to be recognized in AIDS patients. 
•  In immunodepressed individuals, especially those infected with HIV, the infection can become disseminated to the liver, pancreas, and respiratory tract and can be fatal. 

Kathleen McAuliffe This Is Your Brain on Parasites How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and

• What is a parasite?
• 02:18: there's a lot of confusion about that and a parasite is any organism that cannot live independent of another typically it's a small organism that lives inside a larger organism and it includes pathogenic bacteria and viruses not just larger organisms that i think most of us think of when we say parasite
• Parasites can manipulate how animals behave
• 03:34:they can do all kinds of things for example they can tinker with the neuro circuits of their host sometimes they change the hormone levels or levels of neurochemicals they've got a whole bunch of different tactics that allow them to basically make the host behave the way they want it to
• A parasite caused rats to be sexually aroused by cat urine
• 05:40: i came across an article about a parasite a one-cell protozoan that invades the brain of rats and it turns its innate fear of cats into an attraction and when i say attraction i mean sexual attraction the rodents become sexually aroused by the scent of cat urine
• the phalene gut is the only place where this parasite can sexually reproduce
• 30% of population has cat parasite in brain
• 06:51: I learned that about 30 percent of people around the world have this parasite in their brains the vast majority of them completely ignorant of the fact and that some scientists were concerned that it might actually be altering our behavior too.
• People with parasites are more likely to have car accidents
• 08:10: Scientist knew he had a parasite in his brain and would have weird behavior.
• 10:23: People infected with parasites were 2.7 times more  likely to be in car accidents and had slower response time. 
• 11:18: They’re also more likely to suffer with schizophrenia and bipolar and suicide.
• 14:01: People who get into motorcycle accidents tend to have parasite infections
• How to contract parasites
• 13:02: Changing kitty litter, gardening, pregnant women should not be exposed to cat litter or cat poo. The parasite can cause serious neurological damage or trigger a miscarriage. 
• Eating undercooked lamb or beef can cause parasites
• 13:40: 50% of people in France have parasites
• Zombie ants
• 14:45: Zombie ants…a mushroom grows from them and tells them to walk up a certain tree so they can release spores onto other ants. 
• Tiny shrimp get infected
• Tiny shrimp get infected by a parasite and turn pink, it inspires them to socialize and then the flamingos eat them and turn pink.
• Crab parasites
• There’s a barnacle that inserts its cells into a crab and uses the crab to create its eggs.
• Spider parasite
• 21:29: There’s a spider that gets infected by a wasp parasite and it makes it create weird shaped webs. 
• Your gut biome is diverse
• 23:47: 9 out of 10 cells in your body are not “your” cells. The bacteria produces neurotransmitters identical to our own, so it can influence how we think.
• 25:11: The bacteria in your gut regulates hormones to decide if you’re full or not. 
• Parasites can influence brain activity
• A mouse with normal gut bacteria will be curious in a maze, the one without normal gut bacteria will be a slower learner.
• 28:08: A normal mouse will be fine being separated from it’s mom, one with imbalance gut will be in distress.
• Humans have a high disgust radar that keeps us protected from parasites
• A study was done that had people shop in a store and no one touched the cookies that were placed beside a stand of diapers. 
• Racism caused by parasites?
• 32:37: We might be repulsed by foreign people not because they’re foreign but because of the subconscious risk of picking up germs that we aren’t acclimatized to. 
• Washing hands is common ritual in religions
• 35:34: In religions there are a lot of rules like marrying within your religious group, washing hands etc…to protect from parasites. Also ,not eating pork which is known to have contamination. 
• Parasites can affect voting
• People with a higher disgust mechanism were more likely to vote conservative. 

How major fungal infections can initiate severe autoimmune diseases

• Parasites can cause autoimmune diseases
• Several autoimmune diseases have long been linked to viral and bacterial infections. In contrast, the possibility of fungal infections causing autoimmune diseases has received almost no attention. However, major fungal infections can cause severe autoimmune diseases, by decreasing TREG cells and increasing production of interleukin-23, CD4 TH17 T-cells, interleukin-17 and other cytokines, including interleukin-22. Several factors can cause fungal infections, including antibiotic usage.
• Bacterial and fungal populations compete in mammalian oropharyngeal, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary tracts. Antibiotic usage decreases bacteria and thereby favors fungal populations over bacterial populations. This leads to an explanatory hypothesis for the pathogenesis of severe autoimmune diseases by major fungal infections. 
• The increase in fungal populations in individuals susceptible to major fungal infections can also explain the higher incidence of autoimmune diseases. CD4 TH17 T-cells and certain interleukins can be one path of pathogenesis between major fungal infections and increased incidences of major autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and various types of arthritis.

Autoimmunity Has Reached Epidemic Levels. We Need Urgent Action to Address It

• Autoimmune disease at all time high
• At some point in your life, you could have about a one in five chance of developing an autoimmune disease. The odds are greater if you are a woman, you have a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity, or you are exposed to certain pollutants. These diseases include more than 100 lifelong and costly illnesses such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis. They are often difficult to diagnose and currently impossible to cure.
• The effects of autoimmune disease are devastating. As a person’s own immune system attacks their body instead of microbes or cancerous cells, they can experience chronic fatigue, chronic pain, drug dependency, depression and social isolation. These symptoms annihilate mental health, wreck promising careers, destroy lives and, often, ruin families. For too many, these illnesses result in early death. As a patient advocate and a physician researcher, we have seen people search for decades to identify the source of their illness, and continue to suffer after receiving a diagnosis that leaves them with few effective treatments.
• In the U.S., we don’t know exactly how many people have autoimmune diseases and the total numbers depend on who you ask; there is no national registry or systematic method of collecting that data, and our current totals are extrapolated from other countries, such as Denmark and Italy, which do have registries but do not reflect the diversity of our population. Some estimate there are at least eight million people in the U.S. with psoriasis, four million with Sjogren’s disease, and three million with inflammatory bowel disease, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Most autoimmune diseases are being diagnosed in increasing numbers ranging from 3 to 12 percent annually across the globe.
• We also are finding more people with autoantibodies—immune system proteins that, instead of ignoring our cells and organs, treat them as invaders. Autoantibodies are markers for the presence, or the possible development, of autoimmune diseases.
• Huge increase in autoimmune cases
• Our recent research indicates that one type of autoantibody called antinuclear antibodies increased nearly 50 percent in the U.S. in less than 30 years. This is not simply because we are screening more people. Even more concerning, teenagers in the study experienced a nearly 300 percent increase between 1988 and 2012. Many of these children might not ever achieve their full potential, because battling chronic illness will alter their lives.
• Autoimmune illness caused by environmental changes?
• Research suggests these increases in autoimmune diseases are related to remarkable changes in our environment and lifestyles, including alterations in diet and upsurges in obesity, sleep deprivation, stress, air pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals, and infections. We do not know yet if these factors cause autoimmunity, but often, where you find autoimmune diseases, you find these changes as well.
• Expensive to treat these illnesses
• Autoimmune diseases are also among the most expensive diseases to treat. In 2001, the latest year data are available, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases looked at 20 million people who had been diagnosed with 29 autoimmune diseases and estimated that the cost of treating them was more than $168 billion, based on 2023 dollars. This is about what the U.S. spent last year on the Departments of Homeland Security and the Interior combined.

Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet

• Autoimmune is increasing
• “Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the west,” Lee told the Observer. “However, we are now seeing some emerge in countries that never had such diseases before.
• For example, the biggest recent increase in inflammatory bowel disease cases has been in the Middle East and east Asia. Before that they had hardly seen the disease.”
• Autoimmune diseases range from type 1 diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. In each case, the immune system gets its wires crossed and turns on healthy tissue instead of infectious agents.
• In the UK alone, at least 4 million people have developed such conditions, with some individuals suffering more than one. Internationally, it is now estimated that cases of autoimmune diseases are rising by between 3% and 9% a year. Most scientists believe environmental factors play a key role in this rise.
• It’s not us that’s changing, it’s the environment
• “Human genetics hasn’t altered over the past few decades,” said Lee, who was previously based at Cambridge University. “So something must be changing in the outside world in a way that is increasing our predisposition to autoimmune disease.”
• This idea was backed by Vinuesa, who was previously based at the Australian National University. She pointed to changes in diet that were occurring as more and more countries adopted western-style diets and people bought more fast food.
• Our microbiomes have changed
• “Fast-food diets lack certain important ingredients, such as fibre, and evidence suggests this alteration affects a person’s microbiome – the collection of micro-organisms that we have in our gut and which play a key role in controlling various bodily functions,” Vinuesa said.
• “These changes in our microbiomes are then triggering autoimmune diseases, of which more than 100 types have now been discovered.”
• Both scientists stressed that individual susceptibilities were involved in contracting such illnesses, ailments that also include celiac disease as well as lupus, which triggers inflammation and swelling and can cause damage to various organs, including the heart.
• “If you don’t have a certain genetic susceptibility, you won’t necessarily get an autoimmune disease, no matter how many Big Macs you eat,” said Vinuesa. “There is not a lot we can do to halt the global spread of fast-food franchises. So instead, we are trying to understand the fundamental genetic mechanisms that underpin autoimmune diseases and make some people susceptible but others not. We want to tackle the issue at that level.”
• Inflamed bowel linked with autoimmune
• This task is possible thanks to the development of techniques that now allow scientists to pinpoint tiny DNA differences among large numbers of individuals. In this way, it is possible to identify common genetic patterns among those suffering from an autoimmune disease.
• “Until very recently, we just didn’t have the tools to do that, but now we have this incredible power to sequence DNA on a large scale and that has changed everything,” said Lee. “When I started doing research, we knew about half a dozen DNA variants that were involved in triggering inflammatory bowel disease. Now we know of more than 250.”