By John Salak –
There are lots of ways to try and lose weight. An awful lot of them don’t work for one reason or another. Some options are downright stupid, and others are dangerous. The tapeworm diet manages to encompass both stupidity and danger and tapeworm diet dangers are well-documented. It is also disgusting–just to consider.
Unfortunately, it is probably more widely applied than many realize thanks to tapeworm egg pills that now are being sold on the dark web, among other places, that promise to provide a fast path to weight loss when in reality these pills can put a user’s life at risk.
Tapeworms themselves are nothing new. They can turn up in human and animal stomachs after consuming undercooked meat, which contains these worm eggs. The parasites then hack into a person’s stomach and feed on a host’s chewed-up meal. In the process, these worms can grow up to 30 feet, live up to 20 years and deprive their hosts of food and nutrients, causing them to lose weight. While tapeworms have caused gut problems for centuries, there are reports that some…albeit only a few…have used them to lose weight as far back as the Victorian Age.
Now the practice is coming somewhat back into vogue in today’s diet-obsessed world thanks to these egg pills. The comeback is nothing but dangerous according to a range of doctors and health and wellness sites.
Dr. Bernard Hsu, in fact, recently cited one case of a 21-year-old woman who started downing tapeworm egg pills only to find her weight loss came at an increasingly high cost. Problems included stomach cramps, bloating, passing out, unidentified body lumps and intense headaches and cranial pressures.
As the symptoms got worse, the woman also started experiencing bouts of memory loss. She eventually checked herself into a hospital and after several rounds of uncertain diagnosis, she told doctors about the pills.
The doctors only then examined further to find lesions on her brain, liver, tongue and other body parts that were caused by two different parasites. In response, drug treatments were prescribed to paralyze and starve the worms, expel them from her body and calm her enflamed organs.
In some ways Hsu’s patient was lucky. “Unfortunately, many of the people who undertake such extreme measures for weight loss do not understand the potential risks involved, and the dangerous practice of ingesting tapeworms to lose weight should not be considered under any circumstances,” MedicineNet reports.
The Cleveland Clinic also warns that tapeworm symptoms that include nausea, fatigue, cramps and diarrhea can actually mask severe and potentially deadly problems issues related to organ disruption, neurological disorders and anemia.
Ultimately, there are better and safer ways to lose weight than having a 20-foot worm in your stomach gobbling up any food that comes its way.
