People have become more body conscious and driven to try out diets to lose weight. While some people do it the good way with healthy eating and exercise, there’s a shocking diet trend that has been around for centuries and has been increasingly popular – the tape worm diet. These words alone can leave someone feeling squeamish however there are a rare few who resort to these measure to lose a few pounds.
A tapeworm is a parasite that can grow up to 30 feet and it obtains all its nutrients from the digestive system of its host animal (or person!). It doesn’t have a digestive system of its own so it absorbs for it’s host and lives in the intestines. These tapeworm cysts, usually come in the form of a pill which means you have to swallow it to enable it to be in your system.
The theory was that the tapeworms would reach maturity in the intestines and absorb food. Once the person has reached their desired weight loss, they then take an anti-parasitic pill to attempt to kill off the tapeworm which, also causes complications. Here’s why someone should avoid this incredibly unsafe and disgusting diet idea:
Ingesting a tapeworm into your body is basically infecting it with a living organism that your body witll immediately try and fight off. This could cause the tapeworm to deviate into other parts of your body through the blood system (including your brains!)
Your body is the host and the tapeworm is a parasite. This means the tapeworm will be absorbing and eating not just your calories that you wanted to lose, but also your nutrients that help you sustain your health. This can cause vitamin deficiencies, headaches, eye problems, meningitis, epilepsy and dementia.
The amount of actual calories ingested by the tapeworm is not significant enough to allow a dieter to ignore other healthy lifestyle habits made up of good eating and exercise.
The tapeworm diet is also unpredictable. Anyone who follows this diet could simply be putting themselves in harm’s way. As said above, having a parasite living in your body can be dangerous, and you may end up gaining weight due to malnutrition and water retention.
