Jasper Lawrence here

[JasperLawrence]

that is kind of you to say, but you don't know what you are suggesting. I also expect I can learn far more here than I can teach, this is a big, active community. It is really heartening.

You probably already saw my link but in case not, and you want to read more of what I have written, I blog occasionally at http://blog.autoimmunetherapies.com

thanks,

[goodsamaritan]

Hey Jasper,

You may be interested at what the parasite point of view of Instinctos.  Quite interesting. By instinctive eating, parasites are eliminated.

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/instinctoanopsology/instincto-view-on-parasites-the-animal-kind/msg62827/#msg62827

[JasperLawrence]

I read the link, but I think the concept is taken too far.

Eating raw foods does increase the chances of infection with parasites, I think if you live in the industrialised world though your risk is substantially reduced by organisations like the USDA, who require testing and management of the whole food production chain to avoid disease transmission.

Look at the guy living in the Far East who has tapeworm, he would have been very unlikely to have gotten that from beef raised in the US eaten raw, and it would be absolutely impossible to catch it from beef raised anywhere that was completely cooked.

That is not me saying I think the USDA, etc., are uniformly good. Or that I think eating raw food is bad. I eat a lot of raw food, including flesh.

But if you lived in the bush in Africa or South East Asia you would undoubtedly have parasites, where instinctive eating is far more common than anywhere in the industrialised world after all. Your lifetime exposure growing up in the tropics in 3rd world conditions, even palaeolithic conditions, would include multiple concurrent infections with helminths, protozoa, bacteria, fungi and viruses. All derived from food or drink. But I also don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

The issue with parasites is one of type and degree. The CDC recommends US doctors not treat light infections of various helminths, including hookworm (see graphic). But 67,000 people (estimated) die from infection with too many hookworm globally, each year. Are hookworm bad or good? Depends on the circumstances.

Just as you depend on water for life you can die from drinking too much. Nothing like this is as cut and dried, or as black and white, as a simple yes or no "this is good/bad". Life in everything it is a matter of degree and circumstance.

Referring to hookworm again, if you are malnourished and anaemic, you are as a result much more vulnerable to hookworm. You will be able to tolerate far fewer before developing anaemia, the only disease they cause. They feed on blood (0.01-0.03 ml/day per adult N. Americanus) and are approximately 1cm long and 0.5 mm wide. I host about 300 and do not take iron supplements, and am not anaemic.

For the same reason pregnant women are more vulnerable, because they have to produce blood, increasing in volume, for them and for the foetus and supporting tissue throughout pregnancy.

So a "light" infection in a well-fed Western man may not be in a malnourished 3rd-world expectant mother.

I don't agree with the idea that instinctive eating would either help one avoid, or kill, parasites.

All you have to do is look at the third world, what could be more instinctive than a tribe in the Amazon living as their ancestors did? All will have more than one helminth, throughout their lives, as well as various species of protozoa. Also changing throughout their lives, bacteria, etc.

But the issue is not whether parasites are going to get you if you eat raw food, it is whether the parasite you acquire is bad for you, or bad for you in large numbers. Note: One should be particularly wary of acquiring parasites with various animals, not humans, as their definitive host. In those cases mis migration is possible.

For a start most organisms commonly described as parasites are not strictly parasites. A parasite is a class of symbiont, as are commensal and mutualist symbionts. Parasite is a word that has come to mean much more, nothing about it being good, than the original meaning. So people do not think dispassionately or objectively about them. They are just "bad", and that misconception informs both points of view in that post.

Secondly some of those organisms now classified as parasites by scientists, based on a very old, and incomplete, understanding of what they do, such as hookworm, should not now be classified as parasites. They should be classified as mutualist. This is because instead of simply deriving food and a living environment from humans it is now clear they provide certain benefits in return. A parasite is any organism that derives benefits at the expense of another, the host, without providing any benefit in return. A mutualist derives and provides benefits to it's associated organism.

Humans by this definition are parasites, of cows for instance. In fact by one estimate I read, which almost certainly did not include humans in its number, 70% of species are parasites.

But, it is much easier to write an article or headline calling something a parasite, a word everyone "understands", than to write about mutualists, and then have to explain why the readers are mistaken in their understanding of the word parasite.

I will leave it at that.

[PaleoPhil]

One should be particularly wary of acquiring parasites with various animals, not humans, as their definitive host. In those cases mis migration is possible.

This is what I was trying to get at. Which species of parasites have humans as their definitive commensal hosts and which animals do humans eat to get these beneficial mutuals?

[JasperLawrence]

Jasper, do you know what species of so-called "parasites" have developed a symbiotic relationship with humans (hookworms is one, obviously, and it sounds like maybe tapeworms) and what species of animal(s) were their original host(s) before our ancestors first acquired them? In a traditional society, approximately what percentage of people will host parasite-like symbionts?

In a traditional society all members will host a varying number of parasites throughout their lives, starting in infancy. Protozoa from water sources, helminths from food and the soil, bacteria and molds and viruses from food, water and the soil.

Infections would be concurrent, multiple helminths at various points. When I got hookworm again, later on, from Central America, the village I surveyed (I obtained 50 stool samples), which was Ketchki Mayan, showed 90% had roundworm (Ascaris) and 25% had hookworm (Necator). None had tapeworm, but then only one villager kept cows and no beef was consumed in the village. Some undoubtedly had trichinosis, pork was raised and widely consumed (I got to see two slaughtered and butchered as it was a feast day one day I was there). But that would not show up in my stool survey.

So it would be with protozoa, all the water there was taken either from wells which were clearly infiltrated with river water, or directly from the river. Other villages were upstream and no doubt used that same river as water source, sewer, bath and plaything, just as the village I stayed in did.

The men all hunted and fished around the village, that would undoubtedly cause various infections or infestations.

Then there are various parasites of the skin, bed bugs, scabies, lice. Although they all slept in hammocks (instruments of torture, ouch), in other environments where bedding is used long term such parasites are common.

Athletes foot is an obvious parasite that is a fungus, but by one estimate even the impoverished intestines (in ecological terms) of westerners contain about 40,000 different species, numbering in the trillions, of different microorganisms.

the number of cells in or on your body are estimated to be 90% non-self, that is parasites. About sixty percent of your faeces by weight is bacteria, etc.

I would bet that a large proportion provide some benefit to us. But the science in this area is just beginning, so it will be hundreds of years before the relationships between us and all these organisms is characterised.

Also, what organisms benefit which individual varies tremendously. Only those who would otherwise develop immunological disorders without them have a mutualistic relationship with hookworm, to everyone else they are just parasites. At least so far as we know now.

As to original hosts, that is lost, although it could probably be found out with genetic research, say into all the species of hookworm. A lot came from living in groups, and hunting (eating raw meat for instance). Others came with agriculture and living in close proximity to animals, think swine and bird flu.

We probably originally carried many with us when we branched from our lessor evolved ancestors, too, all of which are gone of course.

There is even more to it than that but I am fading, it is late here.

[TylerDurden]

The notion that we are all infested with parasites doesn't really make any sense. After all, many RVAFers have gone for decades on RVAF diets without ever encountering any parasites, and the very, very few who have, have generally found them to be harmless in almost all cases. Plus, the idea that eating only cooked meats, not raw meats, gets rid of all parasites is also untrue- a full third of the world has  the toxoplasmosis parasite, albeit in a completely harmless, nontoxic inactive state, despite eating meats cooked etc.

[JasperLawrence]

This is what I was trying to get at. Which species of parasites have humans as their definitive commensal hosts and which animals do humans eat to get these beneficial mutuals?

Too numerous to tell, we still have not even surveyed the human body to know precisely how many can. I often fantasise about getting a research grant so I can go around the world with an endoscope and survey/assay the contents of various peoples' digestive tracts so we can capture what lives there before modern life wipes them all out. But once that survey was done it would take a team of hundreds decades to identify every organism I found. The survey would be every foot so along the length of the intestinal tract, starting in the mouth and ending at the anus.

Hey, it floats my boat.

If you are thinking only of worms, I would then have to ask "just of the intestines, or of tissue and blood?" For instance filariasis, the mosquito transmitted helminth that lives in our blood stream and lymph system itself is parasitised by a fungus. It is that fungus that causes the human disease elephantiasis.

Symbionts are endlessly fascinating, but it will be centuries before they are all identified and understood.

[JasperLawrence]

The notion that we are all infested with parasites doesn't really make any sense. After all, many RVAFers have gone for decades on RVAF diets without ever encountering any parasites, and the very, very few who have, have generally founs them to be harmless in almost all cases. Plus, the idea that eating only cooked meats, not raw meats, gets rid of all parasites is also untrue- a full third of the world has  the toxoplasmosis parasite, albeit in a completely harmless, nontoxic inactive state, despite eating meats cooked etc.

I think you may be confused by our cultural assumption that parasites cause harm, most don't, and most of what people think of as parasites aren't parasites. Or by the idea that parasites can only be worms or protozoa.

As I stated earlier it is estimated that about 40,000 different species of micro organisms inhabit the intestines of Westerners, who have far fewer in variety than someone living a palaeolithic lifestyle in, say, the Amazon. Protozoa and helminths are obvious examples, but bacteria must be, too.

All these organisms must be one of the three classes of symbionts: parasitic; mutualistic; or commensal. Most are, I believe, mutualistic. That is in exchange for food and shelter we get a benefit. For example it could be deriving more calories from various foods, a service provided by a variety of bacteria in our intestines that break down things (feeding as they do) we cannot digest into simpler molecules that we can. This phenomena has recently been implicated in obesity, although I think they got the causal relationship backwards. My opinion, only.

You would quickly die if you killed everything living in your intestines.

A completely cooked meat is sterile, toxoplasmosis can be caught from dust from a cat tray, as one for instance. Nor, just because most meat consumed is cooked, does that mean it was cooked to sterility. I like my burgers rare, I like my steak rare, that leaves scope for a parasite to survive.

Also, most of those adopting raw food diets are doing so in the west, eating foods that have been raised and handled under USDA, or the European, Japanese, etc., equivalent, mandated conditions, those foods are far less likely to carry a parasite like tapeworm, or even bacteria, than beef produced the old fashioned way in say Kenya, where Tapeworm still infect their herds.

Parasite does not equal harmful.

[PaleoPhil]

Only those who would otherwise develop immunological disorders without them have a mutualistic relationship with hookworm,

If I understand it correctly, the Old Friends hypothesis says that having some symbionts in us is the natural norm, rather than a pathology or irrelevance. Some Paleo dieters give blood regularly to avoid iron overload that they are concerned they might get from eating lots of red meats. If there's anything to that, I was wondering if hookworms, which are known to reduce iron levels, might be a natural adaptation to it.

[JasperLawrence]

Iron is really hard to metabolise, so I am not sure most of that would end up in our bodies from eating a lot of meat.

But even if it did the iron loss to hookworm is so trivial, unless you have a really big population, which generally does not happen. So because it is relatively rare I doubt that would cause an adaptation in humans. The circumstances of such a large infection are so rare it would not exert any evolutionary pressure on us.

Some people with Hemochromatosis have contacted us to get hookworm, but again the blood loss is not enough to produce benefits in those folks.

[PaleoPhil]

Iron is really hard to metabolise, so I am not sure most of that would end up in our bodies from eating a lot of meat.

But even if it did the iron loss to hookworm is so trivial, unless you have a really big population, which generally does not happen. ....

The possibility occurred to me after listening to a radio program in which you were interviewed. Dickson Despommier claimed that Rockefeller's eradication of hookworm in the South with outhouses eliminated widespread anemia. If that's true, then that would suggest that the hookworms did have a significant impact on people's iron levels. It occurred to me while listening to the program and learning of your and others' benefits from hookworms that if hookworms really do normally provide immune modulating benefits and if the hookworms did cause widespread anemia in the South then it could be that hookworms aren't normally a problem, but that the Southern diet was sufficiently low in iron and high in iron antinutrients like grains that the added iron depletion burden of hookworms was too much for some people. Later when I read about Paleo dieters who ate lots of red meat giving blood, it occurred to me that maybe hookworms help to make that unnecessary. The hypothesis of these blood doners was that Stone Agers avoided iron overload by getting cut a lot by bushes and war wounds, but that seemed too far fetched to me. Parasite effects on iron levels seemed more plausible. Granted, it's just speculation on my part, but it would interestingly enable all the puzzle pieces in these various stories to fit together.

Sculptors of Monumental Narrative (Parasites)
http://www.radiolab.org/2009/sep/07/sculptors-of-monumental-narrative/

"Dickson Despommier tells us the story of how the insatiable millionaire John D. Rockefeller turned an eye to the untapped market of the American South and ended up eradicating the hookworm (and, in the process, a number of other awful afflictions) with an ingenious contraption. Then Pat Walters introduces us to Jasper Lawrence, a modern-day entrepreneur whose passion for hookworms stems from lifelong battles with allergies and asthma. But unlike Rockefeller, Jasper sees this parasite as friend, not foe."


In other words, is the hookworm a friend whose blood-sucking (as well as immune modulation) is beneficial in the context of a hunter-gatherer or traditional pastoral or semi-agrarian diet and only becomes a problem once grain agriculture or industrial food processing depletes iron levels to the point where a little more red blood cell loss to hookworms may trigger chronic anemia?

[JasperLawrence]

In other words, is the hookworm a friend whose blood-sucking (as well as immune modulation) is beneficial in the context of a hunter-gatherer or traditional pastoral or semi-agrarian diet and only becomes a problem once grain agriculture or industrial food processing depletes iron levels to the point where a little more red blood cell loss to hookworms may trigger chronic anemia?

The assumption there is that all palaeolithic people had significant hookworm infections and that meat formed a larger part of their diet than those living in the American South when Rockefeller funded the hookworm eradication program.

But there is one enormous differences between palaelithic people's and share croppers in the South that would affect the number of hookworm they would acquire. That is that most hunter gatherers were nomadic, and this alone suggests that they were unlikely to have anywhere near as many hookworm as people who live, and defecate, in one area.

As soon as you stop moving and start on agriculture, live in close proximity with various farm animals, etc., you increase your parasite burden substantially. Not necessarily in variety, but definitely in load, or number. You also expose yourself to more infectious diseases, and you see less variety in your diet, and with it increased likelihood of malnutrition.

Agriculture was great for cultures/societies if viewed as social organisms, and terrible for individuals.