By Femi Kusa
Many people eat and live to make their brains, eyes, muscles and other organs, including the prostate, breeding grounds for worms including, tapeworm, and other parasites. The rainy season will creep in next month, May, to regenerate the fields and farms, and the companies which make worm expelling medicines be pulling us adults by the ears about the health of our children, not ours. Thus, I do not remember how long ago I took worm expellers, although when I hear about stubborn headaches, some visual problems, liver complaints and even prostate gland enlargement or cancer, which is rampant nowadays, my reasoning does not exclude all sorts of worms, including the flat ones. What radio, television and newspaper advertisements may be advising us in the rainy season is that children need to deworm two times a year because they are likely to pick up worms through the underfoot when they walk without their shoes on wet soil or grass. No one is likely to tell us about the foods, herbs and drinks we can take to make the saliva, stomach acid and digestive enzymes in the intestine to kill the eggs of these worms so that they do not survive digestion and get into the bloodstream. For the bloodstream can take them to the brain, breast, eyes, the womb or the prostate gland, where they wreak havocs.
Several years ago, I read the moving clinical report of an American Doctor about the experiences of a jewish patient who was troubled with traumatic headaches. When medications failed to address them, an MRI was done. It revealed what seemed to be a small tumour somewhere in the brain. Surgeons opened the skull. Lo and behold, a baby tapeworm was peacefully nestling there! When it was taken out, the patient regained peace in his head. Many people barely not so lucky. Worms in their brains may proceed beyond giving them mere traumatic headaches to assailing them with neurological poisoning and challenges.
Naturally, the story of a baby tapeworm in someone’s brain should make one to wonder: How did it get there? It got there the way other types of worms and other parasites get there to sometimes cause such mental infirmities akin to insanity. How may they all get there?
Before we talk about how they may all get there, let us look at the case of Rachel Palma at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York recorded at Webmd ArchivesRCHIVES and reported by www.webmd.com.
“June 10, 2019 — Rachel Palma had been having odd symptoms for months — hallucinations, dropping things, trouble speaking. Her many visits to the emergency room didn’t solve things. Finally, a brain scan revealed what seemed to be the cause: a marble-sized tumor. In September 2018, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City scheduled Rachel for surgery, expecting to find cancer.
We did a small dissection of the brain tissue, and what we saw was a very well encapsulated, firm lesion that was ovoid, Jonathan Rasouli, MD, chief resident of neurosurgery at Mount Sinai, told CNN. It looked like a quail egg: Same size, same look, same firmness. When they sliced it open under a microscope, they found a baby tapeworm”.
How tapeworms and other parasites get to the brain probably has to do with weaknesses or failure of the digestive and immune systems. The eggs of tapeworm, member of the flatworm family of which there are about 5,000 species, is consumed with infected vegetables not properly cleaned, food and water. Many people associate tapeworm infection with pig meat, pork. But it can also be contracted by eating raw or undercooked contaminated fresh water fish even seafish which visit fresh water to lay eggs or the intestine of animals, a cuisine delight of many Nigerians called “Round-About”. Such fish include salmon. A tapeworm grown in the human body may be as long as 4 to 15 meters or 49 feet when mature. Many school children, especially in Lagos city, are at risk of tapeworm infection. The gates and environs of many public schools are adorned with hawkers of all sorts of snacks. Prominent among the snacks are reddened and sweetened pork meat, Ese Madam(Madam’s leg), dye-reddened chicken legs, Aso Rock(a chocolate brand so called because it is hard to chew), and fish draped in yam flour and fried, among others.
The government and parents need to pay more attention to what children eat at school. They also need to pay attention to the environment in which children live and play. Several Nigerian studies have shown that children as young as five years old have high prevelence of intestinal worm infection, are weak, prone to disease, wasting and dying. In www.research gate.net, we learn of the study by Olatunji Abulude which discovered that stray dogs in Lagos were polluting many areas with worms from their intestinal wastes. The most polluted areas are Yaba, Ikotun and Agege, says the report. Mushin and Ikorodu have the most mixed specie infections. Obalende recorded the least. “Most of the intestinal helminth parasite identified in this study…. pose a public health problem”, says Abulude. There is no doubt about this. One day, rain water will wash the eggs and the larvae into flood water. Many people will wale through flood water. Many children will play in it.
Mouth
Vegetables are not to be just cleaned in water and cooked, lightly, as is the practice nowadays. After it is cleaned in plain water, raw vegetable should be soaked in salt water for about 15 to 30 minutes or in white Vinegar solution for half that time before cooking. If any egg escape into the meal at table time, the saliva may not be able to kill it with any or all of its Immunoglobins. This appear targeted mainly at bacteria and not helminths and protozoas.
Tapeworm egg is a protein, and should yield to the protein digestive enzymes of the stomach, Pepsin. The amount of pepsin the stomach will make would depend on the concentration of hydrochloric acid(0.05%). Where the body cannot produce this concentration to stimulate the right amount and strength of Pepsin, protein digestion in the stomach would be imperfect, and may facilitate an escape of the egg of tapeworm or any parasite. Most times, too much water or fluids taken with meals may the dilute concentration of Hydrochloric(HCL) acid and Pepsin. That is why it is better to drink water or fluids about 30 minutes before a meal and two hours after. Where the stomach is the architect of weak HCL and Pepsin concentrations, it may be helped with food supplements such as Bethaine HCL, Alzyme, Amazon Digestion Support, Pawpaw leaf in capsules, powder or as fresh leaves, Orange Peel, in peel, powder or oil form.
Alzyme is a proprietary blend of digestive enzymes in the stomach and intestine. Pawpaw leaf is nature’s blend of all the pretecolytic enzymes. The hercules among them is Papain. It has the chemical structure of Pepsin and behaves like it. It breaks down all foreign proteins in the body but spares endogenous or body proteins. Europeans learned of the importance of pawpaw leaf from American Indian hunters. They cut the meat of their game to pieces and wrapped them with bruised pawpaw leaves. Papain oozing from the bruises killed germs, tenderizes or partially digested the meat and preserved it until they returned home. Today, Papain is used as tenderizer in the food and other industries. Pure Papain tablets are also available in health stores. It is derived from dehydrated sap of unripe pawpaw fruit and seeds or sap from the trunk of the plant.
Intestine
Where the egg was not stopped in the stomach, it would migrate to the intestine. Many factors cause indigestion in the intestine. Indigestion at this level may pave the way for large particles of food to penetrate the absorbent lining into the bloodstream. Tapeworm egg is a large molecule. Large molecules breaking through the lining damage it to cost what is known as Leaky Gut Syndrome. This means the intestine is no longer sieving into the bloodstream but leaking into it. This has dire consequences for health. Traveling through the bloodstream, the tapeworm egg which broke through the leaking intestinal lining may finally find its way to a safe haven in the brain or lodge in the intestine, where it begins its growth cycle from larva and pupa into adulthood.
Infections
The young form of tapeworm in the brain causes a tissue infection called Cystiscercosis. It may not present symptoms for years. In the skin, solid small lumps may develop. Months or years later, the lumps may swell and cause pain and disappear. In the brain, a type called Neurocysticercosis, can infect the nervous system and cause Neurological symptoms, including Radiculopathy. This will depend on how many cysts are in the brain, and where they occur.
Headaches, seizures are the commonest presentations. There could be others such as mental confusion, inattentiveness to persons and surroundings, physical imbalance and hydrocephalus, excess fluid around the brain, which may put pressure in the brain and damage it. In the muscles, the cyst can develop into Cysticerci. That’s when it gets into voluntary muscles also known as the skeletal system muscles without which body movements are impossible. Infected voluntary muscles may become inflamed, degenerate or atrophy and scarring.
The eyes
Tapeworm eggs do not get into the eyes, but other worms and parasites do from contaminated water and personal effects. The commonest in our part of the earth is Loaloa which means “worm worm”. It is often restricted to the conjunctiva of the eye, the outermost part of the eyeball. Eye parasites are sometimes difficult to recognise as residents there because they rarely exhibit symptoms. When they do, these may include pain, redness, inflammation and blurry vision. The eyes may also be sensitive to light or be inaundated with floaters or lines in the vision field. The eyes may also itch. In serious cases, the retina, the light sensitive part which conducts vision impressions to the brain for interpretation, may develop scars from infections and become unable to transmit these impulses.
In the United States, an outdoor woman made history when she became the first person in the country to be infected in the eye by a rare cattle worm. She thought there was a hair in her eye until she saw in the mirror a translucent worm crawling across the eyeball, says the Health Day News edition of 12 February 2018. Richard Bradbury, a U.S center for Disease control and prevention researcher, said 14 worms were pulled out of her eyes over 20 days. All the worms grew to no more than half an inch long. This report, I am afraid, is no news in Nigeria. Almost everyday, herbalist wash them out of the eyes into clear bowls under the expressway bridge at Oshodi, in Lagos, or other traffic congested areas where excited crowds watch proceedings.
The liver
Worms are everywhere. They do crawl out of the nose, anus, mouth, play around in the lungs and in the uterus and tubes. They feed on the nutrients in the food we eat, leaving us defficient in some or even malnourished. From the uterus, they may crawl up the Fallopian tubes and out into the Pelvic cavity, dragging along Endometrial cells and, thereby, predisposing their victims to endometriosis, a heavy bleeding and pain condition in parts of the body outside the uterus.
In the liver, the work I am interested in is called Fasciola Hepatica. It is a fluke in the liver of the sheep. The flatworms infects the livers of many mammals, including the human liver. Nigerian women who buy cow liver regularly may notice that the butcher flicks out with his knife something embedded in a hole. This is Fasciola Hepatica in the nest it has made for itself in the liver of the cow. The butcher may leave some of the eggs of those work behind in the liver, and she may not get rid of them before she serves the liver with a sumptous meal. The stage is, thereby, set for a human infection. It is for this and other reasons I turned my back about 20 years ago on the liver, a double-edge pantry of nutrients and toxins.
All poisons in the blood must pass through the liver for it to destroy them. Many toxins still hang out there by the time an animal is slaughtered for food. The Yorubas know the liver of the lion is the most poisonous flesh food on earth. Hunters bury it in the forest together with the knife. Musicians warn us that a fly which perches on the liver of a slaughtered lion and then perches on an edible item has left enough poison behind to instantly kill whoever eats it!
Fasciola Hepatica and Fasciola Gigantica eat up liver tissue, cause ulcers, scarring, infections, nausea, hives, abdominal pain, yellow skin (jaundice), inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis) and anaemia. In some cases, there are presentations such as gastrointestinal disturbances, loss of appetite, flatulence, diarrhoea, cough and respiratory symptoms, chest pain, hemoptysis, hepatomegaly (enlarged liver) and splenomegaly (enlarged spleen).
Herbal anthelmintics either kill worms and other parasites or empower the body to do so. The Male Fern is very effective. So are pumpkin seeds and clove. According to Dr David Hoffman in his The Comlpete Illustration Herbal, other herbs useful against worms and other parasites include “Garlic, Pomegranate, Quassia, Southernwood, Tansy and Wormwood”. On the herbal store shelves in Nigeria are such herbs as Amazon AP, which is specific for flatworms, including Fasciola, Parasite Shield, Parasite Cleanse etc. There are many proprietary and natural offers. Wormwood taken over sometime eliminate tenacious tapeworm. The intestinal sludge may be cleared with Purelife Cleanse or Senna, one of its constituents. Senna taken in excess may produce gas and gripping pains. This is often averted by taking it with Licorice DMG tea. The Berberine containing herbs, such as Oregon Grape and Golden Seal Root, prevent adhesion by worms to tissue. Adhesion enables them to suck nutrients from the host for their own existence which devitalises their victims. Deprived adhesion, they are malnourished, weak and are far more readily dealth with by herbs toxic to their essence and, flushed out of the stool. Organic Enema Coffee (not edible) has a grand place here. From the hepatic veins, the coffee reaches the liver, opens it up and drags it toxins out into the intestine, quickening the gut and washing out all tenacious worms, including threadworms in the anus. Carqueja is a “clearance” herb for the liver. It clears it in and out. Milk Thistle protects the liver against all forms of toxins and helps its cells to regenerate. Liver Balance optimises all functions of this organs. In addition, BITTERS help liver and digestive functions as they promote juice and enzymes secretions. Also helpful when regularly consumed are fruits and herbs such as Grapefruit, Red grapes, Berries, Beetroot, Fish oil, Seed oils, Nuts, and Cruciferous vegetables….cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, broccoli, brassica genus etc.
The Prostate
Many men over 40 years of age live in fear of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) or inflammation, prostate enlargement or cancer, or a combination of them. Solutions to these challenges have concentrated on surgery, anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer herbs or allopathic drugs. Recently, however, evidence has been mounting on the roles bacteria, fungi and viruses can play in these events. Noted, too, is the problem of flatworms. As the honeybee trails the scent of nectar to a flowering plant, some flatworms are said to trail the radiations of Copper into the prostate gland. This suggests the need for each metal detoxification as curative therapy. Two new suggestions should be of interest to prostate gland care givers and their patients.
In the first, Indiana University of Medicine found in mice study that a common parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii forms a cyst in the prostate gland within 60 days of ingress and may remain there for the host’s life, causing chronic inflammation. The U.S. Centre for Disease says about 22 percent of Americans are infected with this simple cell parasite transmitted through infected and undercooked meat and cat’s faeces. In the second study, Professor Jae Sook Ryu led researchers of Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea, in a study which suggested that Trichomonia Vaginalis, a protozoan flagellated parasite which causes sexually transmitted diseases worldwide could cause BPH, lower urinary tract symptoms and even prostate cancer.
The lesson for everyone in all these is the need to eat everyday for health and not the pleasure of the pallate. The foods which bring health and protect it are not always sweet foods, but the bitter ones. The Yorubas say Ota Enu Ni ore inu……the enemy of the tongue is the friend of the organs within.
