Benefits of Parasites

[KD]

I think we should really put in effort to choose the PC (paleo correct) term symbiote from now on.

I mean If you had an old buddy crashing at your house, and was daily grilling up your meat supply, and was always sprawled out on your couch drinking Jack Daniels and your Apollinaris mineral water watching MTV, THAT would be a parasite.

[goodsamaritan]

Everyone I knew growing up that had childhood asthma, grew up around second-hand smoke.

I had asthma when I was young and it was not due to second hand smoke.

My 5 year old girl gets asthma from swimming in chlorine poisoned swimming pools.

[KD]

Its not a single or necessary cause, like many diseases, its officially linked to environment and genetics. Environmental being any kind of low air quality, traffic pollution, or ozone, as well as things like asbestos. The point is, that almost all the people on my block who's parents smoked, had to carry around an inhaler whereas other people (including myself) that breathed the same air and went to the same schools did not, not that everyone who smokes or has been around smoke develops asthma.

gets or got? unless you are talking about symptoms asthma as a condition isn't something that comes and goes. It's cureable, similar to allergies, if one cured their asthma, this would mean being unaffected by aggravators.

but this was about smoking being a preventative.

[PaleoPhil]

I think we should really put in effort to choose the PC (paleo correct) term symbiote from now on. ....

That's probably a good idea. When someone says "Aren't you afraid of parasites?" maybe we could respond, "You mean symbiotes/symbionts?"

[KD]

My understanding is that the common use of parasite is a foreign critter that actually feeds off of you and what you eat, but that some things labeled parasites actually will assist in breakdown of food or decaying matter and other internal function much in the same way one can connote 'bacteria' in different ways. I think a tapeworm would probably be the most common image one could think of -of the first. I havn't listened to the radio show, but my impression, is that if you arn't eating a diet that creates all kinds of gut fermentation and other bi-products of poor diet, are full of sugar and carbohydrate, not to mention an alkaline environment that actually harbors such things, than many of the really pathogenic variety will have shortened lifespans.


heres a brief excerpt from the typical paranoia
http://www.zhealthinfo.com/parasites.htm

"     Here is a list of ways parasites can get into your body: shaking hands, sharing someone else's soda can, kissing (even on the cheek), intimate sexual contact and believe or not, you can get parasites by inhaling dust which contains the dried form of these organisms. You can get parasites from drinking the water of any of the thousands of lakes, rivers, streams and creeks in North America. Giardia Lambia, which causes Giardia, is very common, for example.

 You can get parasites from eating meat. Do you really think government inspectors are able to inspect every animal that goes to the slaughterhouse? Another source of parasites is salads. Dr. Brooks estimates that the overall incidence of E. Histolytic in the United States is between 3.9% and 10%.
     The distressing thing about parasites is that if you get rid of them, you can easily be reinfected. "

so basically even to the parasite propagandists, they are everywhere, and even with the countless efforts it takes to rid yourself of them, you probably still have them and you'll probably still get them.

"As if it wasn't bad enough to have an uninvited guest living in your body, the parasites eat your nutrients before you do! They get the best nutrients, and you get the scraps and leftovers. They grow healthy and fat, yet your organs and skin starve for nutrition. What's more, parasites can remain in your body for 10, 20 or even 30 years.  "

So when there is not much dead and decaying tissue in your body and  parasite-friendly food source and they've done their service, there really isn't much for them to reak havoc on, and so there shouldn't be much of a lifespan. But this may not be true for all types. For instance when we examine a wild situation and whether animals in addition to their existing load that can become harmful and lead to breakdown and death. The only info I can find so far is that both plants and animals can actually become more tolerant in this same fashion, but that certain parasites CAN slow or stress animals, some saying that certain captive animals will live longer, but that there is always some relationship of 10's even 100's of types of what me might call parasites at all times.

[KD]

http://www.nwtf.org/conservation/bulletins/No26-Parasites_Bulletin.pdf

In this article on Wild Turkey it suggest a myriad of problems (although none seemingly too severe) that can occur with certain types - or simply heavy loads - of parasites (cool pics too). and how they develop and infect the animal.

The end is interesting in that it recommends cooking of course to kill any remaining parasites, but that most remain in the organs, and many are "host specific, or require at least a bird host", so you gotta wonder how much truth (especially w/muscle meats) there is to even having transferable parasites, or what affect even natural farming might have on cultivation of human-threatening bugs.

[miles]

One problem I've heard of is that, most animals we would eat would naturally have an alkaline, or at least more alkaline stomach than ours, so things that had adapted to live in/past their stomachs would be destroyed in ours, and have no selective pressure to adapt to ours. However, I heard that cattle fed on grain had a stomach pH more similar to ours, more acidic than if they ate their natural herbivorous diet. Whilst this could mean that humans eating grain would now have an acidic stomach similar to the cattle, would the humans eating only raw meat have an even more acidic stomach so it 'doesn't matter'?

[KD]

the last bit on farming, I wasn't just speaking of grain farming, but that animals taken from the wild, especially over centuries, might not have the healthy balance/resistance. but this is total speculation based on the little I have read. And that all wild animals eating their natural diet, will have some level of symbiotic organisms, and probably some amount of at least moderately harmful parasites.

I really don't know about thriving in the alkaline of the animal, and whether acid would be a total deterrent. But I don't think raw meat would necessarily be linked with being high acid. Although if we are speaking of increased HCL or stomach health in general that should be a deterrent to some types it seems.

there I was referencing traditional parasite warnings, which also speak against sugars and a too alkaline stomach (basically from a hardcore veg diet that doesn't include fermented foods etc...) which is ironic, if one can get these from kissing babies and eating salads, that these types might do well to alter their stomach PH if they are doing any other intensive parasite removal.