A man was hospitalized with worsening migraines only to find out they were caused by parasitic tapeworm larvae in his brain — and researchers believe he was infected by eating undercooked bacon.
The unidentified 52-year-old American man consulted doctors about changes in his usual migraines over four months, according to a study in the American Journal of Case Reports published Thursday. The migraines became more frequent, severe and unresponsive to medication.
The patient was admitted to the hospital for testing. CT scans revealed numerous cystic foci, which are fluid-filled sacs in the brain. Cysticercosis cyst antibody tests returned positive, and the man was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis, the study said.
Fun fact: Both prions and tapeworms can spread from vegetables!
Enjoy your next meal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7030912/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34816974/
How did I know someone would reply with something like this lol.
Guess I’ll just die.
Edit: So having read these more closely and looked into it further:
Yes, it’s suggested there is a vector for prion disease — particularly CWD — from cross-contamination of plants but the study focused on Chronic-Wasting Disease (CWD), which itself is not infectious to humans… Yet.
There have been no documented infection of a life-long vegetarian/vegan with an human-infectious prion disease. One famous case discovered the individual got it from infected beef as a child.
Tapeworms and Roundworms can cross-contaminate vegetables, mostly due to poop. Wash your veggies. Cook your meat.
Nevertheless the vast majority of tape-worm and round-worm cases stem from meat. Naturally, if one needs only wash/cook the exterior of a vegetable versus ensuring the internal cooking of meat from an animal raised around other animals and wallowing in its own shit, the risk is evidently going to be much higher in the latter.
Wash your veggies, cook them, and wash them again. Cook them one more time if you don’t trust your water
It’s been three days. I starve, yet I must wash and cook the vegetables ten more times before I can eat them.
I love fun facts.
Study seems to suggest exposing the wheat plant roots to lots of prions didn’t do anything other than get them on the roots, sometimes?