By Audrey Bryant
Over the years, veterinarians and horse owners have gotten into the habit of deworming too frequently, without considering the negative consequences. The chemicals are hard on your horse's gut (they damage beneficial bacteria) and their overuse has created chemically-resistant parasites. Some veterinarians call them super worms.
Showing posts with label worms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worms. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Monday, March 2, 2015
The Sunny Side of Parasites
by Kip Tulin, M.D.
We tend to think of a parasite as:
a) a disgusting wormy-squiggly thing that inhabits our bodies and gives nothing in return, or
b) our 24 year-old nephew who is still couch surfing in our living room and continually raiding our refrigerator.
For (a) at least, the relationship might be more complicated than we think. I'd like to take a running start at this explanation, from about 500 million years ago. Paleoparasitologists have found fossil evidence of parasites dating back to the lower Cambrian era. This means that both the host and the parasite have spent a long time climbing the evolutionary ladder together and have developed a remarkable balance. Twenty-five percent of the world's human population have parasites. In more primitive settings the percentage approaches one hundred. And, it turns out, even parasites have parasites.
We tend to think of a parasite as:
a) a disgusting wormy-squiggly thing that inhabits our bodies and gives nothing in return, or
b) our 24 year-old nephew who is still couch surfing in our living room and continually raiding our refrigerator.
For (a) at least, the relationship might be more complicated than we think. I'd like to take a running start at this explanation, from about 500 million years ago. Paleoparasitologists have found fossil evidence of parasites dating back to the lower Cambrian era. This means that both the host and the parasite have spent a long time climbing the evolutionary ladder together and have developed a remarkable balance. Twenty-five percent of the world's human population have parasites. In more primitive settings the percentage approaches one hundred. And, it turns out, even parasites have parasites.
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