Thursday, February 4, 2010

True or False Story? Any one who knows the 40's and 50's well!!?

Okay, well i'm very curious about this story, back in the i believe it was 40's or 50's (forgive me if i'm wrong, it might be a different year but i believe it is 50's) anyway, back in those times woman who wanted to become very thin, there was a pill they could go get and inside this pill was a parasitic worm eggs. And woman could take it, and the pill would send these eggs to the womans body and they hatch, the woman would become very thin.





*Now, if there was such a pill what happen to it?


*I'm not to familuar with the worms they used, but wouldnt it harm the body?


*If they did oka, why dont' they use them (not that i would used them lol)?





If you do know much more about this story i would appricite more info lol.. thank you so much for your time and help! I'm am very curious about this, in your opinion is this story a true or false?True or False Story? Any one who knows the 40's and 50's well!!?
Yes it is true,i do not remember the year,but inside the pill was a tapeworm.


Have people ever really eaten tapeworms for weight loss?Yes





A tapeworm is like something out of a horror movie. It's a wiggly, creepy looking ribbon-shaped creature that lives inside you, absorbing your nutrients and laying millions of eggs. They can reach 20 feet (6.1 meters) or more in length and live for years. And if the idea of having a worm living inside of you doesn't have you shuddering in revulsion, just wait until you hear how they reproduce.





Despite the extreme ';gross'; factor of tapeworms, some people have suggested that acquiring one intentionally would be a relatively simple way to lose weight. In fact, tapeworm pills may have been sold as weight-loss aids in the past. In some ways, it seems to make a certain amount of sense -- that is, if you can get past the gross-out factor. If a tapeworm is absorbing your body's nutrients and calories, you can eat all you want and enjoy the taste. Then the worm diverts it all before it hits your waistline, right?








颅We'll find out. Actually, there are lots of rumors and myths surrounding tapeworms, so we're going to untangle this bizarre mystery. How do you get a tapeworm, anyway? Once you have one, how does it come out? Did a legendary opera singer lose her girth (and some say, her voice) by intentionally ingesting a tapeworm? Also, how much weight could a tapeworm really help you lose?





Tapeworm Parasite


A tapeworm is a parasite through and through. It obtains all its nutrients from the digestive system of its host animal. But here's a strange fact, a tapeworm doesn't even have a digestive system of its own. It absorbs nutrients (mostly carbohydrates and sugars) that have already been partially broken down by the host's digestive system.





An adult tapeworm lives inside the intestines of the host animal, which could be a pig, cow, dog, sheep, fish or even a human. Different species of worm prefer different hosts; although, most can infect several different types of animal. At the top of the worm is the head, called the scolex. The scolex has suckers or hooks that it uses to attach to the intestinal wall. Without this feature, the peristaltic action in the host's intestines -- the rhythmic muscular contractions that move material through the digestive tract -- would push the worm out. Below the scolex is the neck. The rest of the worm's body buds off of the neck.


A microscopic view of a tapeworm's head


Boston Museum of Science/Getty Images


A tapeworm scolex, showing the suckers and hooks it uses to attach to the intestine wall.





颅Here where it starts to get really creepy. The tapeworm's body, called the strobila, is made up of many segments, sometimes thousands. Each individual segment is known as a proglottid. A proglottid is either male or female. The segments closest to the neck are mostly male and produce sperm. Segments farther along the body are female and are basically egg sacks. A tapeworm can produce millions of fertilized eggs. Proglottids frequently break off from the worm and are passed out of the host along with feces. However, each proglottid has functional muscles, allowing it to crawl. Sometimes, a detached proglottid will crawl out of the host through the anus. More often, a proglottid crawls away from the pile of fecal matter left by the host, increasing the chances that it will be eaten by a different animal. Eventually, the proglottid disintegrates, leaving behind the eggs.





When the eggs are eaten by an herbivore, they are ';hatched'; by the conditions within this intermediate host's digestive system. The larval stage, known as a hexacanth, uses hooks to burrow through the host's intestinal walls to reach the bloodstream. There, it turns into a scolex and forms a cyst. The resulting condition is known as cysticercosis. Pigs, cows and sheep are most commonly infected. Humans can act as an intermediate host for the pig-born species of tapeworm, and therefore can contract cysticercosis. We'll get back to the horrors of cysticercosis in a minute.





Once the cysts form, the parasite simply waits within the host. When the host animal dies, the meat may be eaten by other animals (or by humans) raw or undercooked. The ingested cysts pass into the primary host's digestive system, where the scolex attaches to the intestine wall and the whole cycle begins again.





Cysticercosis, the condition resulting from tapeworm hexacanths burrowing their way into your bloodstream, is not pleasant. The cysts can end up pretty much anywhere in your body, including in your eyes or your brain. The cysts sometimes grow, and they inflame the surrounding tissue. The resulting pressure can cause temporary symptoms or permanent damage, including blindness, brain damage or even death in some extreme cases.





Let's assume that, after reading all of this, you've decided against intentionally acquiring a tapeworm. How can you prevent them? The good news is that, in the United States at least, inspection of meat keeps tapeworms out of the food supply. You apparently can see the cysts in the meat if you know what to look for. Thoroughly freezing meat at 14 degrees F (-10 degrees C) for 10 days, or making sure it is thoroughly cooked will kill any parasites. And if you do acquire a tapeworm, a single dose of praziquantel, an anti-worm medication, will kill it by forcing all its muscles to permanently contract. The tapeworm will then leave your body along with your feces.





Despite all of this grim information, there's still a chance that some people have intentionally acquired a tapeworm to lose weight. Well, did it really happen, and does it work?





Tapeworm Myths


There are a few tapeworm legends floating around in addition to the weight-loss one, so let's clear some of those up first. One is that you can get rid of a tapeworm by coaxing it out with a bowl of milk and cookies placed near your mouth. Not true. A tapeworm is not Santa Claus, and not only does it live in your intestine -- with a stomach and esophagus between it and anything near your mouth -- but it doesn't even have any sensory organs that would allow it to detect the presence of food. Remember, this is a very simple creature. It can't smell or see. This is the same reason that putting some enticing food near the other end of your digestive tract won't draw out a tapeworm either. If you have a tapeworm, simply take your pill and let nature take its course.





颅Opera singer Maria Callas was rumored to have used a tapeworm to achieve a remarkable loss of weight in the mid 1950s. She did, in fact, lose more than 60 pounds over several months. She was also known to have contracted a tapeworm at some point in her life. However, the two incidents are probably unconnected. Callas enjoyed rare steak, so she probably got her tapeworm accidentally. These two aspects of her life were jumbled into a persistent rumor.





There is evidence of advertising, from the late 19th and early 20th century, hawking ';sanitized tapeworms'; to help women maintain a slim figure. Whether the pills sold actually contained tapeworms or whether women actually ingested them hoping to acquire a tapeworm is difficult to verify. Such a pill would likely contain the cyst part of the tapeworm's lifecycle, but one would imagine that cultivating a large supply of these would make for a rather unpleasant day's work. It seems unlikely, but there's also a good chance that somewhere in the long, strange history of humanity, someone somewhere did try using a tapeworm to lose weight. So, the answer to the question, ';Did it happen?'; is most likely yes, but it was probably never widespread.





That leaves us with just a few more interesting questions. What happens to your body when you have a tapeworm? Do the pounds just melt away? Can you stuff your face with all manner of delicious, unhealthy foods and get off consequence-free? Well, not exactly. For one thing, tapeworms are not large enough to absorb all the calories a human takes in. If your diet is already limited, the tapeworm could steal enough from you to cause malnutrition. If you're chowing-down on carbs, both you and the tapeworm will probably pack on the pounds. In most cases, a tapeworm infection is completely symptom-free. In fact, you might never know you have one until a proglottid makes its presence known in your toilet.





Some tapeworm hosts do suffer from intestinal discomfort or diarrhea. And some also experience reduced appetite, which could lead to weight loss. However, we can assure you that simply reading about tapeworms can cause a similar loss of appetite, so more drastic measures might not be necessary. But even if a tapeworm did trim some pounds, it still wouldn't be a good way to lose weight.





For most people, the goal of losing weight is to look better. However, as a tapeworm steals certain vitamins from your body, notably vitamin B12, you'll suffer ill health due to a shortage of those nutrients. Sure, you might slim down, but no one is going to be impressed with your sickly appearance. If that weren't enough, there's always ascites. Ascites is a condition in which the body's immune response to a parasitic infection leads to a build-up of fluid in the abdominal cavity. This manifests itself physically as a swollen, distended belly. Not exactly the intended result of a tapeworm diet plan. And don't forget about good old cysticercosis, with the brain damage, blindness and possible death. Given this information, we think it's safe to say that if you really want to lose some weight, eat less and ride your bike.


0000000000000000000000000000000000True or False Story? Any one who knows the 40's and 50's well!!?
Interesting question. Recently on a Thousand Ways To Die a woman ordered tape worms online and consumed them to help her lose weight. She lost a lot of weight, but did nothing about the infestation even after she became thin and weak. According to the show she died as a result.





I don't know if this is true or not.





I found this site below that offers Tapeworm Miracle Diet Pills.
You are correct it was a Tape worm. ~M~
My friend sent me a picture of an ad for ';sterilized tapeworm pills'; from the 30's





I think it's at strangecosmos.com
Cookie has it covered except for one really annoying theory the medical community has been considering for several years. Evidence is accumulating that it is possible that the sudden rise in allergy problems we have been seeing is because we have eliminated most of our tapeworms. Apparently they help regulate the immune system somehow. If this proves out, no doubt some bright laddy will genetically engineer some that are sterile and we'll all be forced with the choice of allergies or harboring a parasite. It sounds really gross until I remember all the strange tiny critters we all have on our skin. I can't think of the scientific term for them.
Back in the 20s they did sell diet pills that claimed to have tapeworms in it.





What we don't know is if there were actually tape worms in the pills... it might have been false claimes, there were no regulations back then.








People might have taken tapeworm pills for dieting... a lot of accusations and urban legends have spawned from the idea but we just don't know.





In my opinion, either way, it doesn't matter... it would be so gross and unhealthy

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