Pretty disgusting, right? A variety of other nasty parasites are transmitted through soil, including other kinds of roundworms, whipworms, and hookworms. They are transmitted by dogs, who spread them around through their feces. The roundworms that cause toxocariasis are commonly found in dirt in the U.S. She had eaten dirt from a neighbor's yard in Massachusetts.įortunately, there is an effective treatment for Toxocara infection, and the patient recovered and delivered a healthy baby. Only then did the patient reveal that she had been eating dirt, but not from Guatemala, which she had not visited in several years. Some of the tests came back positive for Toxocara, a parasite roundworm. “According to a tourist brochure from the Christian shrine in Esquipulas, Guatemala, 'In Guatemala, eating clay tablets combines healing, devotional reminders, blessings from Our Lord of Esquipulas, good fortune, and pregnancy nutrition.' ” The patient was originally from Guatemala, where nematode infections are common, and where dirt-eating during pregnancy is encouraged in some areas. This slows down digestion so that there’s more time for the nutrients in food to reach your growing baby. In the first weeks, progesterone relaxes the smooth muscle in your digestive system. Mass General ran extensive tests, and her brain MRI showed lesions "suggestive of multiple strokes." Given all her symptoms, her physicians suspected that she was infected by a parasitic worm (a helminth or nematode) caused by eating dirt or clay. It’s really common to feel bloated during the early stages of pregnancy and it’s those hormones that are mostly to blame. The symptoms lasted for approximately 2 minutes and were followed by spots in her visual fields, headache, neck pain that radiated to her arms, nausea, and dizziness." ".she began to hyperventilate and her vision went black from the periphery to the center. She was initially treated and released, but 11 days later, Steven Feske and colleagues) about a 38-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital with back and neck pain, vomiting, and headache. This came to my attention last week in a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine (written by Dr. These worms are invisible to the naked eye–you can't see them crawling around–but they can cause devastating disease and even death. Quite the contrary: dirt is the home of some nasty parasites, including a type of worm call toxocara, which can make you extremely ill. Of course, ancient humans tended to die before they reached the age of 40, so I'm not sure I want to imitate their dietary practices.ĭirt is not the new superfood. There's even a name for this practice: geophagy, or "earth eating." The NPR story claims this practice goes back millenia.
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