The Tapeworm

I have recently just got back from a 5 day walking exhibition in the Highlands (Scotland) with some friends, however, to my surprise after I went to the toilet I soon found that I had worms (disgusting I know) - more pacifically Threadworm or Pinworm. This probably occurred from me drinking stream water that I did not properly purify using a Chlorine tablet and so the 'Eggs' were ingested, giving them a home as well as a host. This got me even more interested into parasites than I already had, as I myself could say (not out loud and excluding natural parasites already in the human body) that I too had a parasite (not a dangerous one, but still...). So I did some further research into this, dusted off a few books and decided to write an article on a very interesting parasite - the Tapeworm.


Tapeworm
Tapeworms are parasites that belong to a group of animals called Flatworms. The Flatworm have a fairly long bodies but if you take a cross section they are very thin in comparison to other parasitic worms. Tapeworms are more specifically 'Obligate Parasites', meaning they cannot survive without a host. They are also called 'Endoparasites' meaning they live inside the bodies of their hosts. 

Structure
The adult 'Pork Tapeworm' lives inside the small intestine of humans (this parasite occurs in humans when pork is under-cooked). The body looks creamy-white piece of ribbon. They can reach up to 37 feet long when a doctor pulled a tapeworm out of a patient called Sally Mae Wallace out of her mouth in 1991. 


The tapeworm scolex becomes attached at one end to the internal intestine lining using its crowed hooks and four suckers - clearly shown in the image above - and grows progressively broader in length and width. 

What is truly remarkable about this particular parasite is the fact that the tapeworm is composed of a chains of as many as a 1000 divisions of proglottides. A proglottide are sections of tapeworms containing both the male and female gametes. This means that surgeons could leave a proglottide still in the patient meaning the tapeworm will continue to grow and carry out the same cycle as before. The sections of proglottides are shown in the image above. This is also how the tapeworm grows in length as the last section of the tapeworm grows another section and then of which will then grow another section etc. 


Problems the Tapeworm May Cause to Their Hosts
Surprisingly tapeworms cause very little physical problems to their host apart from depriving the body of essential nutrients. The tapeworm has been specifically adapted to have a flat body providing it with a very large surface area, as I have said before the tapeworm becomes attached to the small intestine so the mammal would have fully digested the food and is ready to be absorbed which is where the large surface area of the tapeworm comes into its element and how it becomes a successful organism, which I find remarkable and amazing!  


The main symptom that people complain about is weird tummy sensations, nervous system and a general lack of energy. It has also been found that some larvae get trapped in the wrong bloodstream and are pumped through the heart eventually to the brain and to the muscles. This can cause a variety of problems to the host, some of which include regular seizers, headaches and muscle spasms. It also causes intracranial pressure when the tapeworm blocks the cerebrospinal fluid from leaving the brain.




On a pure scientific level I find the tapeworm an incredible organism and its amazing how well adapt the organism is. 

The Life Cycle of a tapeworm.