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Many of us have come across frightening data that almost every first inhabitant of the planet is infected with parasites – and with advertisements for a variety of “magic” means to cleanse the body of them. We talked with an expert about what it is – an urban legend or a terrible truth.
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 hardly lie. Unless they rearrange the accents and distort the numbers, reshaping reality to fit their needs. After all, from the fact of infection, it is concluded that once every six months, everyone without exception should “worm” 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 about the prevalence of parasitic invasions, citizens from the dark side of medicine give out summary data for the entire class “Infectious and Parasitic Diseases” as it. It turns out very impressive figures, because absolutely everyone really gets sick with certain infections.
Another technique is to sell “miracle remedies” for helminths (worms), but at the same time talk about all parasites in general. Malaria, for example, is also caused by a parasite – and is treated for it with a very specific group of drugs, and even they do not always cope. No triplets, black nuts and other herbal “magic” pills will expel malaria pathogens from the blood and can only make it worse. But, equating all parasites with worms, it is possible to write down 212 million cases of the disease and 429 thousand deaths from malaria in 2016 ( according to the WHO ) – who will figure out which parasites are guilty?
Of course, hiding some of the details helps. For example, geohelminths, that is, worms that spread through the soil, actually infected 1.5 billion people . It is enough to omit just one phrase from the WHO bulletin: “Such infections are widespread in tropical and subtropical regions – the largest number of them occur in sub-Saharan Africa, America, China and East Asia” – to give the impression that a significant proportion of sufferers live on Russian territory. And we are constantly in contact with the ground – we walk on it – which means that we need to be regularly worm-driven.
How else to convince a person that he is inhabited by Aliens to the very top? Come up with non-existent symptoms. In one very popular “anthelmintic” film, early wrinkles on the face, an increased number of freckles, cracked heels, gnashing of teeth at night, frequent colds, constipation or, conversely, diarrhea, pain in joints and muscles, are called signs of the presence of parasites in the body. menstrual irregularities in women and erection problems in men. If you do not find all of the above in yourself, then you certainly have a “breakdown” at some point. And this, according to the authors of the film, also testifies to helminthic invasion.
Even if you do not dive into scientific sources, English Wikipedia will be enough to see: among the reasons for the same bruxism , night grinding of teeth, helminths, there are no worms – but, of course, any grandmother will quickly prove the opposite, citing a bunch of unverifiable examples from life.
If you managed to sow a seed of doubt in a person, then the next stage is to drive him to some quack diagnostic technique: hemoscanning (diagnostics using a living drop of blood), Voll diagnostics, bioresonance diagnostics. There worms and other parasites are found in almost every first person. At the same time, for some reason, it is customary for alternative diagnosticians to take their word for it, although they have repeatedly failed experiments miserably, being unable, for example, to distinguish patients with proven allergies from people without them. And iridologists who diagnose the iris of the eye, led by the guru of this direction in the United States, Bernard Jensen, back in 1979, did not find pathology in 74% of patients who needed hemodialysis (an artificial kidney), and declared 88% of healthy participants in the control group sick.
Really working drugs are prescribed only according to indications – no ” just in case”, no “preventive courses twice a year”
The most interesting thing is that modern methods of real diagnostics make it possible to diagnose parasitic diseases with a very high probability, the sensitivity in some cases reaches 92.7% . But this, as you can imagine, is not an argument. But “doctors hide the real prevalence of helminthiasis” – this is a very argument. As well as “pharmaceutical chemistry is not able to cope with parasites, unlike our natural miracle remedy.”
Let’s move on to treatment. More precisely, to “treatment”, because all real, really working drugs that act on certain parasites are well known. And they are prescribed only on the basis of indications – no “just in case”, no “preventive courses twice a year.” Drugs kill or at least significantly cripple living organisms – and people are saved only by the fact that the parasites die first, as they are smaller in size.
The development of such tools is very difficult – and the most significant discoveries are awarded with scientific awards, including the Nobel Prize. In 2015, it was completely parasitic : the inventors of avermectin (a universal remedy against roundworms) and artemisinin (a herbal remedy against malaria) became laureates in the category “Medicine or Physiology”. When was the last time a troika received the Nobel Prize? And the black walnut? What about Trigelm? Well, at least one of the rampant advertisements on the radio and the Internet? They are hung like a Christmas tree with medals from various exhibitions, 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 instinct of self-preservation of parasites, prompting them to active movement and exit from the body in a natural way.” Of course, worms cannot speak of any instincts for self-preservation. Helminths with their extremely simplified nervous system are only capable of some semblance of chemotaxis – moving from an unfavorable environment to a more favorable one. But this does not mean that if we create chemically unbearable conditions in the intestine, then the helminth will immediately go with things to the exit – at most, it will be able to dig deeper into the mucous membrane, even if for this it will have to be damaged.
We must not forget about indirect harm: symptoms that are mistaken for helminthiasis, in fact, may indicate completely different diseases, and miraculous remedies, instead of normal treatment, may turn out to be dangerous. For example, in ulcerative colitis, coarse “cleansing” fibers or chemically active ingredients will only exacerbate the picture. And no one canceled direct harm: “proven” folk remedies, for example, a peeled head of garlic in the anus, can cause injuries and poisoning.
Yes, indeed, even on the territory of Russia, you can become infected with worms – according to various estimates, about 1% of the population is carriers of worms. But our traditional parasites – pinworms, roundworms, tapeworms, Trichinella – are well diagnosed and treated well. Preventive measures are also known: wash hands, vegetables and fruits, do not purchase meat and fish from your hands, process them correctly when cooking. And do not be carried out on aggressive advertising of “antiparasitic drugs”, from which not only is there no benefit, but also enough harm