There was a time when a physician might intentionally feed a tapeworm to a patient desperate to lose weight. That physician was a quack. It’s never been a good idea. People — even ‘first world’ people — do still get tapeworms, and they can still be a problem. Under emergency conditions, they’re likely to cause more infections. What’s a prepper to do?
Jokes aside, what do tapeworms do?
They’re intestinal parasites. Once one is ingested as an egg or small worm, it hatches in the gut and burrows its spiky heads into the gut wall and hangs on. The nutrients intended for You end up getting absorbed by Tapeworm. The worm grows and makes more and more segments. It might grow many ft long (80! is the record), still in the gut.
The head keeps the rascal attached to the inside of the gut, and the segments just keep on going…until they separate and are shed to infect someone else.
Either eggs or segments of the tapeworm can be shed in the feces. From there they end up in water. That’s how Tapeworm intends to spread its offspring; by getting them drunk by a new host.
More rarely, Tapeworm might decide to go on holiday and leave the gut — by burrowing through it and getting into the body proper. That’s a problem, as it causes what’s called ‘invasive disease’.
Sounds Not Fun. How can you avoid getting a tapeworm?
The good news is, avoidance is a very effective strategy for reducing risk. Tapeworm eggs are big; if you’re careful about purifying your water by any of the usual means you’re going to get rid of them. You do have to wash the dirt off of your root vegetables with some care if the area is shared by wild hogs. Probably not an issue for your garden carrots, but wood-foraged roots are another story. Some woods do have feral hogs running in them.
Eating undercooked meat from some critter that had invasive disease is also an infection route. Pork is the usual culprit, since pork tapeworms like human guts pretty well.
How do you know if you have a tapeworm?
Mostly you don’t. A lot of infections are asymptomatic. A significant subset will cause abdominal distress, though: nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, that sort of thing. Weight loss is common, malabsorption syndromes (mostly vitamin deficiencies) from the tapeworm stealing your nutrition are also possible.
Invasive disease is most often noticed by the cysts. Your immune system doesn’t like the worms and builds walls around them, making lumps appear wherever there’s a trapped worm.
Those cysts become a serious problem only when they rupture (as they will from time to time) and you develop an allergy to the worm. Then allergic problems, such as rash and hives, arise.
If the tapeworms get into the nervous system, that’s the worst case. Headaches occur, but the seizures are worse. (1)
The dedicated diagnostician can often find worm segments in stool samples — at least that worked for dog tapeworms way back when I was in college. You really gotta want the grade…
What can you do about a tapeworm?
That’s harder. The best answers are all prescription drugs, and since this site is for preppers we can’t depend on those being available.
What else might work?
Well, garlic might. Garlic has a group of nifty biomolecules that do have significant medicinal properties. (You can read some about garlic here, and about how to get it in a ‘prepper situation’ here.) It’s been reported that anti-worm activity is one of those medicinal properties.
Evidence is mixed. I didn’t find any decent science on tapeworm treatment, but some on related parasites in animals. Garlic extracts helped against cryptosporidiosis (2) in mice. Roundworm infection in chickens wasn’t improved (3), but extracts did have negative effects on the roundworms that cause trichinosis in pork (4). Schistosomes are probably the closest relatives to tapeworms I found, and the report on them (5) was that the garlic reduced infection rates and worm burdens, but wouldn’t eliminate the infection.
Garlic has a lot of nice benefits, including improving food flavor, so I’d sure up my eating of it if I suspected worm problems. Worst case is tasty food but bad breath.
How much garlic does it take to battle a tapeworm?
Who knows? It’s not even certain the garlic works. Doses and forms of garlic given vary widely by study. One to two cloves’ worth a day seems a popular choice that people see some effects with. (6)
In summary
Tapeworms are just one of those problems that’s rare and easily eliminated in modern living. It would be less rare and a little harder to deal with in an emergency situation. It’s not zombies-eat-your-brains bad, but can really sap strength and suck the pleasant out of life. It’s best to know how to avoid it, recognize it, and at least have a shot at dealing with it.
References
1) Mayo clinic staff. (2017). Tapeworm infection. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tapeworm/symptoms-causes/syc-20378174.
2) Gaafar, M.H. 2012. Efficacy of Allium sativum (garlic) against experimental cryptosporidiosis. Alexandria Journal of Medicine. 48(1): 59-66.
3) F. C. Velkers, K. Dieho, F. W. M. Pecher, J. C. M. Vernooij, J. H. H. van Eck, W. J. M. Landman; Efficacy of allicin from garlic against Ascaridia galli infection in chickens, Poultry Science, Volume 90, Issue 2, 1 February 2011, Pages 364–368, https://doi.org/10.3382/ps.2010-01090
4) Mikaili, P., Maadirad, S., Moloudizargari, M., Aghajanshakeri, S., & Sarahroodi, S. (2013). Therapeutic uses and pharmacological properties of garlic, shallot, and their biologically active compounds. Iranian journal of basic medical sciences, 16(10), 1031-48.
5) Metwally, DM, Al-Olayan, EM, Alanazi, M, Alzahrany, SB, and, Semlali. A. (2018). Antischistosomal and anti-inflammatory activity of garlic and allicin compared with that of praziquantel in vivo. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine201818:135 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-018-2191-z
6) Mohammad Shafiur Rahman (2007) Allicin and Other Functional Active Components in Garlic: Health Benefits and Bioavailability, International Journal of Food Properties, 10:2, 245-268, DOI: 10.1080/10942910601113327
Black Oak acorns are an old school tapeworm and general intestinal pest remover. The nasty tannic acids are the active ingredient. Yes it tastes awful but a spring tonic along with fire cider monthly is pretty good prevention.