This is Your Brain - On Pork Tapeworms

Do you know of someone that needs a good reason to switch to a whole-food, Starch-Smart® diet? If so, you may want to share the two videos below with them featuring Dr. Michael Greger. This information may motivate your bacon-loving friends to reconsider their disease promoting diets!

A review by the Mayo Clinic describes how eating pork may initiate neurocysticercosis, which literally means "pork tapeworms curled up inside your brain." Surprisingly, neurocysticercos is "the most common cause of adult-onset epilepsy in the world." Pork tapeworm larvae, called Cysticerci, "create cavities in the human brain and other body tissue where their tiny bodies grow sometimes into tapeworms 2 to 7 meters (23 feet) in length and can live up to 25 years in the human body." The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published a review stating, "Pork tapeworms on the brain has emerged as a cause of severe neurologic disease in the United States."

The CDC explains in further detail, saying, "Even after pork tapeworm larvae infect your brain, some people remain asymptomatic their entire lives, while others can go for years without symptoms and then suddenly become very ill with seizures, headaches and other focal neurological deficits as the larvae multiply within the nervous system and other issues and can cause sudden death just due to the pressure buildup in the brain."

Initial symptoms of this condition can be vague complaints such as headaches, weakness, dizziness, and high blood pressure. These pork tapeworms can also move into our muscles. Interestingly, even those that do not consume pork could also be infected by eating food handled by someone that does eat pork; via tapeworm eggs.

Dr. Greger closes by saying, "So for those of us that want to avoid the number-one cause of adult-onset epilepsy, we may want to not eat pork, and not eat anything made by anyone who eats pork."

Click Here for more information on headaches and migraines regarding pork.