Question to expert: Is it true that most people are infected with parasites
TEXT: Alexey Vodovozov
RESPONSES TO THE MAJORITY OF US QUESTIONS we are all used to searching online. In this series of materials we ask precisely such questions - burning, unexpected or widespread - to professionals in various fields.
Many of us came across scary data that practically every first inhabitant of the planet was infected with parasites - and with advertising of various “magic” means to cleanse the body of them. We have talked with an expert about what this is - urban legend or terrible truth.
Alexey Vodovozov
toxicologist, scientific journalist
Distributors of “miracle pills” love to tell that a huge number of people are infected with parasites - and the most interesting thing is that they almost do not lie. Unless rearrange accents and distort numbers, reshaping reality to fit their needs. After all, from the fact of infection, it is concluded that every six months all the people need to be “anthelmintic” with special sets of dietary supplements, which sometimes cost just indecent money. The devil, as usual, is in the details, and in the case of parasites, they are very important. For example, speaking of the prevalence of parasitic invasions, citizens from the dark side of medicine give out for her summary data for the entire class of "Infectious and parasitic diseases." Very impressive numbers are obtained, because absolutely everybody really gets sick with this or that infection.
Another trick is to sell "miracle remedies" from worms (worms), but at the same time talking about all the parasites in general. Malaria, for example, also causes a parasite - and they are treated for it by a very specific group of drugs, and even they do not always cope. No triads, black nuts and other vegetable "magic" pills will drive out the causative agents of malaria from the blood and can only make it worse. But, equating all parasites to worms, you can record 212 million cases of the disease and 429 thousand deaths from malaria for 2016 (according to WHO) —who will figure out which particular parasites are to blame?
Of course, keeping silent about some of the details also helps. For example, helminths, that is, worms spreading through the soil, are really infected with 1.5 billion people. It’s enough to drop just one phrase from the WHO bulletin: “Such infections are widespread in tropical and subtropical areas - the largest number in sub-Saharan Africa, America, China and East Asia” - to create the impression that a tangible part of sufferers lives on Russian territory. And we constantly contact with the earth - we walk on it - it means that we need to regularly anthelmintic.
How else to convince a person that he is inhabited by strangers to the very top of his head? Come up with nonexistent symptoms. One very popular "anthelmintic" film as signs of the presence of parasites in the body is called early wrinkles on the face, an increased number of freckles, cracks on the heels, teeth grinding at night, frequent colds, constipation or, on the contrary, diarrhea, pain in the joints and muscles, menstrual irregularities in women and erection problems in men. If you do not find in yourself all of the above, then you have definitely had a “breakdown”. And this, according to the authors of the film, also indicates a worm infestation.
Even if you do not dive into scientific sources, there is enough English Wikipedia to see: among the causes of the same bruxism, night gnashing of teeth, there are no worms - but, of course, any grandmother will quickly prove the opposite, citing a bunch of unverifiable examples from life.
If it was possible to sow the grain of doubt in a person, then the next stage is to drive him to some charlatan diagnostic technique: hemoscanning (diagnostics on a live drop of blood), Voll diagnostics, bioresonance diagnostics. There are worms and other parasites almost every first. At the same time, for some reason, alternative diagnosticians are often taken for granted, although they repeatedly failed experimentally, being unable, for example, to distinguish patients with proven allergies from people without it. And iridodiagnosis, diagnosing the iris, led by the guru of this trend in the United States, Bernard Jensen, still in 1979 did not find pathology in 74% of patients who needed hemodialysis (artificial kidney), and declared sick 88% of the healthy participants in the control group.
Really working drugs are prescribed only by indication - no “just in case”, no “preventive courses twice a year”
The most interesting thing is that modern methods of real diagnostics allow to diagnose parasitic diseases with a very high probability, sensitivity in some cases reaches 92.7%. But this, as you understand, is not an argument. But "doctors hide the real prevalence of helminth infections" - this is a very argument. As well as "pharmacy chemistry is not able to cope with parasites, unlike our natural miracle remedies."
Go to the treatment. More precisely, to the "treatment", because all real, really working drugs acting on certain parasites are well known. And they are appointed only according to indications - no "just in case", no "preventive courses twice a year." The drugs kill or at least perceptibly mutilate living organisms - and people are saved only by the fact that the parasites die first, as smaller ones.
The development of such tools is very difficult - and the most significant discoveries are marked by scientific awards, including the Nobel Prize. In 2015, it was entirely parasitic: in the category “Medicine or Physiology”, the inventors of avermectin (a universal remedy for roundworms) and artemisinin (a plant remedy for malaria) became the winners. When was the last time Nobel Prize got a triad? And black nut? And "Trigelm"? Well, at least something from the unrestrainedly advertised on the radio and the Internet? The medals of various exhibitions are hung like a Christmas tree, but none of them has anything to do with science.
Or here is a quote from the description of the mechanism of action of one of the miracle remedies: "It acts gently and effectively, provokes the self-preservation instinct of the parasites, prompting them to actively move and exit the body naturally." Of course, about any instincts of self-preservation in worms speech can not be. Helminths from their down to the limit with a simplified nervous system are capable of only a kind of chemotaxis — the movement from an unfavorable environment to a more favorable one. But this does not mean that if we create chemically intolerable conditions in the intestine, the helminth will immediately go with things to the exit - the maximum will be able to dig deeper into the mucous membrane, even if it will have to be damaged.
We must not forget about indirect harm: the symptoms that are taken for helminthiasis, in fact, may indicate completely different diseases, and miracle remedies instead of normal treatment can be dangerous. For example, in non-specific ulcerative colitis, coarse "cleansing" fibers or chemically active ingredients will only aggravate the picture. Yes, and no one has canceled direct harm: "proven" folk remedies, such as peeled garlic in the anus, can cause injuries and poisoning.
Yes, indeed, even in Russia you can become infected with worms - according to various estimates, we have about 1% of the population with worms. But our traditional parasites - pinworms, roundworms, lentets, trichinella - are well diagnosed and well treated. Prevention measures are also known: wash hands, vegetables and fruits, do not acquire meat and fish from hands, properly handle them when cooking. And do not be carried out on the aggressive advertising of "anti-parasitic drugs", from which not only there is no use, but also enough harm.
Photo: sinhyu - stock.adobe.com, kostrez - stock.adobe.com