Man finds out migraines caused by brain tapeworms; undercooked bacon may be culprit
Man finds out migraines caused by brain tapeworms; undercooked bacon may be culprit
The 52-year-old American man was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis. His only habit connected to the parasitic infection was eating "lightly cooked, non-crispy bacon," new study says.
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.
I don’t understand these flaccid bacon people. Crispy bacon is clearly superior.
Not flaccid, I want crispy edges but goddamn, bacon you can sit and chew for awhile is amazing. Burnt/"crispy" bacon just crumbles and, in my possibly tapeworm adled brain, deprives you of sweet bacony goodness.
Exactly. Crispy edges for that maillard flavor, but still chewy means the fat coats your mouth and leaves that long lasting savory bacon flavor even after a sip of coffee.
Crispy might as well be eating a bottle of bacon bits. It's just disappointing dry dust with a flavor that disappears almost immediately.
Mett Brötchen 🤤 as a German I disagree.
Crispy bacon on sandwiches and floppy bacon for breakfast. This is the way.
I posted this in a reply, but I'm reposting it here:
Bacon is already cooked when you buy it from the store (at least in america). The difference between "pork belly" and "bacon" is that bacon is cured and then smoked. That smoking process gets the temperature above the range to cook it.
Besides, even "chewy" bacon is going to get above the recommended pork cooking temp. It's so thin, it will reach that temperature very quickly. If it gets hot enough to start rendering the fat, it's definitely hot enough, and I have a hard time believing anyone would pull bacon out of the oven before it's had time to render some fat.
If you read the case report by the docs, they don't say "we think he got this disease from bacon".
Our patient’s lifelong preference for soft bacon may have led to instances of undercooked bacon consumption, but this would have caused him to develop taeniasis, an intestinal tapeworm, and not cysticercosis [1]. Taeniasis occurs when consuming undercooked pork and the larval cysts embedded within, while cysticercosis is contracted when humans ingest eggs found in the feces of other humans with taeniasis [1].
In other words, the brain version only comes from eating the eggs, which can only come from eating poop of someone who had the intestinal worms. They later specify that they think the most likely scenario is that he got the intestinal version, re-infected himself through the fecal-oral pathway, then somehow cured himself of the intestinal version.
Personally, I think the most likely scenario is that he got the parasite the same way you get any other disease that uses the fecal-oral pathway: contact with someone's inadequately washed hands, or eating food prepared by someone with inadequately washed hands.
Reminder to always wash your toys after playtime, people.
And no matter how clean the chocolate starfish claims to be, it is never clean enough
Personally, I think the most likely scenario is that he got the parasite the same way you get any other disease that uses the fecal-oral
I thought you were going somewhere else with this...
Fear won't stop me, if she enjoys it, I'm tongue punchin' it.
That's my least favorite pathway.
Leela, I had worms. I needed to know who you loved. Me or them.
I'm wondering if this explains why my chewy-bacon eating father is a Trumper.
No, that's right. It's the fascism.
tapeworms are to fascist americans what the ratatouille rat was to that chef in the movie
From prions to tapeworms, rare though they may be, I'm happy to be vegetarian even though I miss wings.
Fun fact: Both prions and tapeworms can spread from vegetables!
Enjoy your next meal.
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:
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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.
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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.
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Tapeworms and Roundworms can cross-contaminate vegetables, mostly due to poop. Wash your veggies. Cook your meat.
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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.
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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?
The Gardein ultimate chic'n wings are pretty solid if you haven't had them yet. I wish someone made veggie wings that you could use your own sauce with, but I haven't seen any.
I, too, have headaches and eat chewy bacon... 😟
Obviously you've got brain tape worms.
Just think of them as pets that really like to cuddle.
I never eat bacon. No headaches...😎
it's pork dog, like many things it needs to be cooked properly.
if you want to risk it for undercooked meat, that's on you. but certain things need to be sanitized. cooking does that. there are many ways to have chewy, yet properly cooked bacon.
Bacon is already cooked when you buy it from the store (at least in america). The difference between "pork belly" and "bacon" is that bacon is cured and then smoked. That smoking process gets the temperature above the range to cook it.
Uncured bacon is a lie. They basically claim not to add nitrites/nitrates (which is necessary to cure it), but they add celery juice or powder, which contains nitrites and nitrates, so they can avoid listing them as ingredients.
By candlelight I ate that pork I couldn't see danger on my fork Oh if you do love me completely Never again feed me food that will eat me
Pardon, I forgot to credit these lyrics: they are from "Trichonosis" by The Arrogant Worms
This sort of shit terrifies me because I definitely don’t cook my food perfectly each time
No need to cook it perfectly, just sufficiently. Nobody lets me grill the chicken because mine is good and sterile all the way through. It’s also dry, so a ways past “perfect”. But I also know how to make gravy, so it’s all good.
New fear unlocked
On one hand, cooking it thoroughly is probably a decent fix.
But...I wonder if irradiation would be sufficient to wipe out tapeworms?
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull8-3/08305702731.pdf
On the other hand, irradiated bacon has been approved for human consumption by the health authorities and is being processed commercially in the United States. In fact, participants at Karlsruhe were served such bacon which had been kept for 21 months at room temperature (20°C to 38°C) and showed no signs of deterioration.
That does sound promising.
There's nothing promising about immortal bacon.
And I just watched House m.d. 1 part of 1st season last week :)
Does the curing process not kill them? This surprises me.
Wasnt this shit on House, MD?
Hmmmm maybe I should stop eating a raw sausage every now and then.......