On Ditching Close Friends

Since I creeped you all out with parasites yesterday, I’ll try and make it up today with anti-parasitic drugs. No, I am not giving free samples, but I AM explaining a little bit of how they work. Just as good, right? Right, don’t argue.

Ectoparasites like fleas and ticks can be repelled and eradicated fairly simply. They’re so small, you can easily make their environment too toxic for them to survive (either via topical or oral medication). Hell, to a certain degree, a garlic and onion heavy diet will repel blood-sucking parasites. Doesn’t take a lot, those sucky suckers are finicky suckers, sucker. Helminths, however, require drugs as sophisticated as those used in viral or bacterial infections. Considering that certain worms like tapeworm can be many feet long, creating a toxic enough environment for a helminth could be too toxic for you too. So antihelminthics will paralyze or increase permeability of the worm’s plasma membrane. Of course, there are drugs that will destroy on contact, but these are to be used with caution. This is strong shit.

Want more? Talk to me later. Got a busy week so we’ll see how much I update. Should be back to normal by Friday, though.

 

Source

–. 2008. “Antihelminthic Drugs”. Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. The Gale Group, Inc.

The Closest Friends You’ll Never Want

This poster is no joke. Once upon a time, quack doctors and snake oil salesmen peddled tapeworms to the unwary to cure them of “life-threatening fat”. Although the chances are that the quacks probably had as little idea as any of how life-threatening their diet aid was. Stories of fasting and holding an orange slice between your teeth or smoking circulated as means to cure oneself of the parasite. I know, right? You’d have better luck fishing for the thing.
As pleasant an opening as that is, it’s the nicest way I could introduce a topic like parasites. They’re not pleasant, but honestly, they are VASTLY under-studied. Look at a list of parasites with drugs associated with their eradication and you’ll notice most occur in well-developed countries. Granted, it makes sense; roundworm in pets living so close to the family can be easily transmitted to kiddos, and though malaria isn’t big in the US, it’s transmitted via the mosquito, whose sheer pervasiveness keeps it on the world’s (particularly tourists’) radar. Many other parasite-based diseases are associated with contaminated water (a monumental issue to tackle on its own), which tourists and other foreigners know to avoid, but locals either have no choice or don’t know that they can fix the problem. So prevention is the first concern here.
So what’s a parasite? A parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host, to the parasite’s benefit and the host’s detriment. Many parasites are transmitted via vectors (carriers) that will carry them from the environment or an intermediate host (where sexual reproduction does not occur) to a primary host (where sexual reproduction will occur). Mosquitoes act as a vector for a variety of parasites, such as those causing malaria and elephantiasis. Speaking of those bastards, they are best known for carrying malaria, a disease cause by protozoa, single-celled parasites that can live free in the environment or in a host to royally mess shit up. Other well-known parasites include helminthes (roundworm, heartworm, sand worms, etc) and ectoparasites (ticks, fleas and xenomorph face-huggers).
Now that you’ve had the intro, I can get into the good stuff…tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. It’s my bedtime now.

 

Source
— 2010. “Parasites”. Centers for Disease Control. Atlanta. 19 Feb, 2013