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The Amoeba That Eats Human Intestines, Cell By Cell
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Entamoeba histolytica is a tiny pathogen that takes a terrible toll. The single-celled parasite—an amoeba about a tenth the size of a dust mite—infects 50 million people worldwide and kills as many as 100,000 each year. Now, a new report reveals how the microbe does its deadly damage: by eating cells alive, piece by piece. The finding offers a potential target for new drugs to treat E. histolytica infections, and it transforms researchers' understanding of how the parasite works."
This is like the Animal channel bugs that infest you program.
Gently reply
I was eating but, hey who needs food.
Infects 50 million and kills 100000... I'll take those odds. Better than driving to work for a year.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I'm not a tropical medicine expert or anything (and even if I claimed to be, would you trust a guy who impersonates an opinionated fungus on the internet recreationally?); but according to Our Wiki Overlords, corroborated by assorted googling, the current treatements of choice appear to be a number of antiprotozoal drugs found to work against this organism; but nothing particularly specific to it, and definitely nothing that targets the specific genetic and chemical pathways the ameoba exploits to achieve the 'nibbling' attack. Again, nonexpert here; but the use of a grab-bag of nonspecifics suggest that it hasn't (yet) done anything brutally clever in terms of drug resistance; but that existing understanding of the organism probably hadn't provided any really elegant attacks against this organism in particular, leaving 'probably best to use stuff that works on protozoa, since it is one.' as the standard.
The researchers did experimentally disrupt this process(once with a drug, in a second case with a genetically crippled ameoba strain) as part of demonstrating that the 'nibbling' was the mechanism behind human cell death(which can apparently cause some ghastly intestinal trouble), so presumably there is some hope that we'll be able to weaponize the mode of attack they used, and get an elegant, selective, unlikely-to-interfere-with-other-eukaryotes-like-the-patient, drug that will prevent the horrible-death-by-intestinal-nibbling; but nothing in pill form just yet, certainly not that you could just go shoving into patients without killing some little fuzzy animals first.
(Also, if Malaria is anything to go by, the statistical answer to 'how do you treat it?' is 'On average, you don't. Protozoa are tough motherfuckers and it mostly just kills poor people in ghastly countries anyway. Let's go find a cure for hair loss and midlife limp-dick syndrome...')
This is unique? How else do microbes make a living? Amway sales?
Table-ized A.I.
They had a show on tv called 'Monsters Inside Me' the show is about parasites that invade the human body. They also show how doctors seem to fail, or use their educated minds keep the diagnosis simple. They also show or describe the treatment.. And it is what you'd expect just use antibiotics, or antiprotozoal drugs.
Sarcasm, what could possible go wrong with that? History tells us something but we continue to go ahead with using those drugs.
Something that should be universal in health care are running tests for parasites, I really wonder how many people are being forced to go thru terrible treatments for something like cancer, or pick another illness, when it was a parasite, another failure of the medical system. Parasites have been around as long if not longer then the flu, and yet there isn't a mandatory test. Whether it is a check up or an emergency.
He isn't a leftist, he's a troll.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
how absurd.
the poor and 'non whites' are the ones who mow the lawns, clean the houses, cook their food, change their oil, etc.
they NEED a sub-class around to SERVE them. the sub-class dying out is a nightmare to the ultra rich.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The normal approach to parasitic treatment is to give patient drugs that are highly toxic to the parasite and much less so to the host.
We should develop a drug that gives them a liking for the taste of their own kind while disliking the taste of humans. Maybe call it ouroborosin?
Ah, perfect - now I have an answer for that annoying question people sometimes ask me:
What's eating you?
E. histolytica!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
(Also, if Malaria is anything to go by, the statistical answer to 'how do you treat it?' is 'On average, you don't.
The statistical answer is drain the swamps, kill the mosquitoes, and malaria goes away. There's a reason malaria no longer has a presence in the developed world and it's not because nobody cared about it.
Be like a first-worlder, and have less tasty intestines.
But isn't "draining the swamps" now called "wetlands destruction", so people don't want to do it?
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Malaria and dengue are on the rise again. Humans have created so many opportunities in their own landfills and housing (a single old car tire is enough) that these mosquitoes dont go away if you drain a swamp. We are also rather good at helping these animals spread, since every continent not Antarctica now has both species carrying the disease roaming in the wild because we let them ride along with our goods. As far as killing them goes, they have proven to be able to mutate such that common `environmentally friendly pesticides no longer work and we have to resort to really nasty stuff to sufficiently kill an outbreak. So, statistically, you dont treat malaria or dengue but you try to avoid it, contain the spread and fight the symptoms if you happen to get ill from it.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
In other words the parasite equivalent of Taco Bell.
Besides, how can you know you are rich if you don't have some poor people for comparison?
If you risk infection in the course of activities you have to undertake, like driving to work, then fine. But I for one would not choose to subject my self to a risk of .2% through infection by this flesh munching turd monster. And if infected I would rather take a course of pills to erradicate it from my body, even if there were transient side effects such as explosive diarrhea.
Why is there never a parasite that eats unwanted fat and sugars then poops useful enzymes and vitamins into it's host's body?
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Some human strains may have adapted to this and need it to be healthy.
We already have a similar adaption to worm parasites and without a worm infection those people suffer until they get one.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Well, parasites have become the zebras of today's medical zoo. While it was very common in the good ol' days of yore when it was pretty much a given that you'd have some sort of parasites in you (quite literally to the point where it was a surefire way to tell that something's wrong with you if you did NOT have the "normal" collection of parasites in you), parasites have become something rather rare in our highly sterilized world with through screening of food and other stuff that we put on or into us. Hell, even eating sushi in areas that are days away from any coast is not the food equivalent of playing Russian Roulette.
It is simply far more likely that you have some kind of bacterial disease or even cancer rather than some odd parasite.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You nuts? If all the serfs die out, you'd have to WORK again!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Did they manage to infect Madagascar and Greenland?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's like asking what's worse, Parkinson or Alzheimer. Does it really matter whether you spill your beer or whether you forgot where you put it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And my point is that there are things worse than a higher risk of death.
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Ouroborosin would make them eat themselves, which is a whole other thing. The drug you're describing would probably be called cannibalis. I can just see the tagline: "Cannibalis: giving parasites a different kind of the munchies."
...a guy who impersonates a recreational fungus on the internet opinionatedly... FTFY
Entamoeba histolytica!
Or Washington DC for that matter. I can't think of a better city to build in a swamp.
Often, the tests for intestinal parasites (usually from a series of stool samples) don't actually work. While false positives are rare, false negatives are quite common.
Given that cancer is usually an actual tumor (or, at the least, something that is blindingly obvious on a microscope slide), the odds of getting treated for cancer when you really had a parasite is pretty much zero.
And likewise, the flu has pretty distinctive symptoms (and a somewhat reliable test) that you are unlikely to be treated for influenza but be suffering from a parasite.
A mandatory test for any given parasite would be a fantastically expensive waste of money for relatively little benefit. And of course there are a crazy number of parasites it's possible to infect a human with; which ones do you test for?
This Amoeba is like a tank,uncomplicated and ugly but it gets the job done and is hard to stop becalms it doesn't have any obvious fatal weaknesses so any powerful concoction designed to blast it's way through this biological Tank will hurt the host as well unless tightly targeted at the Amoeba.so as to avoid collateral damage. The other possibility(although an ugly one) is that drug companies are not in a hurry to find a cure because this problem occurs in low social economic populations who desperately need their help but can't pay for it so big Pharma drags its feet and decides to find a cure for cellulite instead because its more profitable. Welcome to the 21st Century a sweet romantic place...........