• Question: Is that true that 80% of human beeings have worms? If yes, that's so scary, how to solve this problem?

    Asked by amogus on 27 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Amy Mason

      Amy Mason answered on 27 Jan 2022:

      Hello.
      I see why you put scary as a key word!

      I don’t recognise this exact statistic. I tried googling for it and I found some website claiming that 80% of Americans have parasitic worms in their guts and don’t realise it. I think anything that is happening to the majority of people in a rich country and they haven’t realised – well it can’t be hurting them, or feeling unpleasant or they would have realised and be complaining.

      We actually have lots of tiny lifeforms living on and in us – pretty much everyone has tiny tiny mites on their skin, too small to see or feel (https://youtu.be/YW2eGaUzq7E ) and lots of bacteria live inside us and help us digest our food.

      This can seem rather creepy, but it’s always been happening and you never noticed before – and if you don’t use a microscope you probably won’t ever see them.

      Now there are some species of worms that humans can catch that cause distressing illnesses – see this NHS page on what the symptoms are and how you can avoid catching them https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/worms-in-humans/
      Most important = wash hands after the toilet and before eating. Buts that’s a good idea anyway!

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