You may’t wriggle your way out of obesity.
Doctors on YouTube have warned viewers that tapeworm egg pills are being sold on the dark web as a quick-fix weight reduction solution — putting consumers prone to serious illness and potentially death.
The parasites are known to make a house within the human gut after their eggs are unwittingly consumed via undercooked meat products, with some that may grow as much as 30 feet long while munching on their host’s post-chewed meals, thus triggering weight reduction. The bizarre practice of ingesting tapeworm eggs for weight reduction goes back to at the least the Victorian era, though it’s unclear how commonly the strategy was used.
Dr. Bernard Hsu, a US-based oncologist and host of Chubbyemu, a YouTube channel dedicated to sharing tales of medical oddities, reported on a case study of a girl who bought capsules full of tapeworm eggs using cryptocurrency.
The 21-year-old patient, referred to only as “TE,” had been struggling to shed pounds conventionally through weight loss plan and exercise when she scrolled across an ad on social media for a “controversial” weight reduction cure with convincing before-and-after photos.
“TE was intrigued. A ‘forbidden’ method is one which have to be so good, and so powerful, that it’s the one true secret that she must know,” Hsu began.
TE wasted no time downing two of the tapeworm tablets and shortly saw the outcomes she’d hoped for — though it got here on the uncomfortable cost of normal stomach cramps and bloating. Still pleased together with her weight reduction, she dismissed the symptoms.
Nonetheless, her worry grew after a shocking bathroom incident, as graphically recalled by Hsu. ‘She thought she could feel something flapping and slapping round her cheeks while she was sitting down,” he said.
“When she was about to flush, she looked back and saw some tan, rectangular pieces floating around within the bowl creeping out of the majority mass.”
Again, TE chalked up her strange bowel movement as all a part of the method — fat leaving her body.
But her symptoms grew weirder: just a few weeks later, she noticed an unusual lump under her chin. She reportedly then pressed on the mound, after which awoke face down on the ground after having apparently passed out, unsure how long she’d been unconscious.
Days of intense headaches and cranial pressure followed the episode.
Finally, she checked herself right into a hospital for severe headaches and abdominal pain — without telling them about her foray into the tapeworm weight loss plan. Typical tests measuring blood sugar levels and bacterial infection got here back negative. Believing she could also be harboring an unidentified viral infection, doctors treated her swelling belly and sent her home with no clear diagnosis.
The headaches soon returned alongside a scary latest symptom.
“She would have periods in time where she’d suddenly get up in the midst of the day and he or she couldn’t remember anything from the previous few hours,” Hsu said.
Again, she returned to the hospital. At this point, about one yr had passed since she swallowed the tapeworm eggs — but her doctors still didn’t know that.
Physicians turned their scope to her brain and located multiple lesions, prompting them to take a wider take a look at her whole body where they found more lesions across several organs, including her tongue and liver.
Finally, TE confessed to her dangerous weight loss plan ploy.
They found that TE had consumed two species of the parasite. Taenia saginata, or beef tapeworm, matched the outline of the oblong, tan-colored bugs she present in her toilet bowl just weeks after first taking the pills.
It was the second type that caused major issues. Taenia solium, which stems from pork, is thought to make its way outside of the digestive tract by releasing eggs into the bloodstream and selecting any kind of body tissue, comparable to the brain. While they won’t hatch unless they continue to be within the gut, the intact eggs may cause a wide range of horrifying unwanted effects, comparable to the hard bump — a clump of eggs — TE found under her chin.
This process known as cysticercosis — harmless in some but a nightmare for others, depending on where the eggs land. Others who’ve suffered cysticercosis of the brain have endured personality shits and cognitive dysfunction for years before detecting the problem, Hsu claimed.
Fortunately, tapeworms are treatable and TE received drugs to paralyze and starve the worms, allowing the body to expel the foreign organisms, and steroids to calm the inflammation in her brain.
After three weeks in a hospital, TE was tapeworm-free and discharged.
Hsu pleaded with viewers to heed this cautionary tale: “In an able-bodied human, weight reduction with weight loss plan and exercise is physically doable, and that has much less risk than letting extra organisms intentionally live inside you.”
You may’t wriggle your way out of obesity.
Doctors on YouTube have warned viewers that tapeworm egg pills are being sold on the dark web as a quick-fix weight reduction solution — putting consumers prone to serious illness and potentially death.
The parasites are known to make a house within the human gut after their eggs are unwittingly consumed via undercooked meat products, with some that may grow as much as 30 feet long while munching on their host’s post-chewed meals, thus triggering weight reduction. The bizarre practice of ingesting tapeworm eggs for weight reduction goes back to at the least the Victorian era, though it’s unclear how commonly the strategy was used.
Dr. Bernard Hsu, a US-based oncologist and host of Chubbyemu, a YouTube channel dedicated to sharing tales of medical oddities, reported on a case study of a girl who bought capsules full of tapeworm eggs using cryptocurrency.
The 21-year-old patient, referred to only as “TE,” had been struggling to shed pounds conventionally through weight loss plan and exercise when she scrolled across an ad on social media for a “controversial” weight reduction cure with convincing before-and-after photos.
“TE was intrigued. A ‘forbidden’ method is one which have to be so good, and so powerful, that it’s the one true secret that she must know,” Hsu began.
TE wasted no time downing two of the tapeworm tablets and shortly saw the outcomes she’d hoped for — though it got here on the uncomfortable cost of normal stomach cramps and bloating. Still pleased together with her weight reduction, she dismissed the symptoms.
Nonetheless, her worry grew after a shocking bathroom incident, as graphically recalled by Hsu. ‘She thought she could feel something flapping and slapping round her cheeks while she was sitting down,” he said.
“When she was about to flush, she looked back and saw some tan, rectangular pieces floating around within the bowl creeping out of the majority mass.”
Again, TE chalked up her strange bowel movement as all a part of the method — fat leaving her body.
But her symptoms grew weirder: just a few weeks later, she noticed an unusual lump under her chin. She reportedly then pressed on the mound, after which awoke face down on the ground after having apparently passed out, unsure how long she’d been unconscious.
Days of intense headaches and cranial pressure followed the episode.
Finally, she checked herself right into a hospital for severe headaches and abdominal pain — without telling them about her foray into the tapeworm weight loss plan. Typical tests measuring blood sugar levels and bacterial infection got here back negative. Believing she could also be harboring an unidentified viral infection, doctors treated her swelling belly and sent her home with no clear diagnosis.
The headaches soon returned alongside a scary latest symptom.
“She would have periods in time where she’d suddenly get up in the midst of the day and he or she couldn’t remember anything from the previous few hours,” Hsu said.
Again, she returned to the hospital. At this point, about one yr had passed since she swallowed the tapeworm eggs — but her doctors still didn’t know that.
Physicians turned their scope to her brain and located multiple lesions, prompting them to take a wider take a look at her whole body where they found more lesions across several organs, including her tongue and liver.
Finally, TE confessed to her dangerous weight loss plan ploy.
They found that TE had consumed two species of the parasite. Taenia saginata, or beef tapeworm, matched the outline of the oblong, tan-colored bugs she present in her toilet bowl just weeks after first taking the pills.
It was the second type that caused major issues. Taenia solium, which stems from pork, is thought to make its way outside of the digestive tract by releasing eggs into the bloodstream and selecting any kind of body tissue, comparable to the brain. While they won’t hatch unless they continue to be within the gut, the intact eggs may cause a wide range of horrifying unwanted effects, comparable to the hard bump — a clump of eggs — TE found under her chin.
This process known as cysticercosis — harmless in some but a nightmare for others, depending on where the eggs land. Others who’ve suffered cysticercosis of the brain have endured personality shits and cognitive dysfunction for years before detecting the problem, Hsu claimed.
Fortunately, tapeworms are treatable and TE received drugs to paralyze and starve the worms, allowing the body to expel the foreign organisms, and steroids to calm the inflammation in her brain.
After three weeks in a hospital, TE was tapeworm-free and discharged.
Hsu pleaded with viewers to heed this cautionary tale: “In an able-bodied human, weight reduction with weight loss plan and exercise is physically doable, and that has much less risk than letting extra organisms intentionally live inside you.”
