Continued from Part 1 of Intestinal Parasites…

The following is a list of ten intestinal parasites, or worms, that commonly occur in humans:

1 – Entamoeba histolytica  (in untreated sewage) – causing dysentery
2 – Balantinum coli (in pig excrement) – causing diarrhea
3 – Giardia lamblia (in water or contaminated fomites) – causing chronic fatigue and abdominal pain
4 – Trypanosoma brucei (in tsetse fly bites) – causing sleeping sickness
5 – Plasmodium falciparum (in mosquito bites) – causing malaria

[1-5 above are protozoan whose cysts or trophozoite forms are commonly found in fecal matter and other tissues]

6 – Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm) – causing nutritional deficiencies
7 – Enterobius vermicularis (pinworm) – causing itching and disrupted sleep
8 – Trichuris trichiuria (whipworm) – causing dysentery if the worm load is large
9 – Fasciola hepatica (liver fluke) – causing obstruction of the biliary tract
10 – Taenia saginata (beef tapeworm) – causing organ dysfunction where it migrates
[6-10 above are helminths usually transmitted through direct consumption]

Some intestinal parasites like giardia, schistosmiasis and cryptosporidium cannot be removed from water in the treatment it receives, neither filtering nor cleansing agents can rid them from our drinking water. In small bouts our systems cope with intestinal parasites, suffering only minor stomach effects but vulnerable people like young children, the elderly or those in poor health may become very ill or in severe cases, die. Many are expelled through our normal waste function but some eggs, laid at a rate of 200 to 2,000 per day by one female (in the case of schistosmiasis), can become lodged in other tissues and these eggs are the cause of disease.

It is important to keep your system clear of parasites because their breeding increases the worm load, which can lead to severe problems and the patient is beyond treatment as there are too many reproducing adult parasites to deal with. Symptoms to look out for as an indication of parasite infestation include general malaise and weakness followed by, skin rashes often mimicking scabies, feverishness, aching limbs, coughing, anemia, pain on urination, swelling of the abdomen or bloody stools, weeks after the early symptoms.

Clinical tests are available for only fifty of the hundred or more intestinal parasites that may infest the human body and the results may not always be accurate, so it is difficult to diagnose a problem with parasite infestation if the symptoms appear to be the same as those of other conditions.