
Intestinal worms may help women get pregnant more often - DrScump
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/11/intestinal-worms-may-help-women-get-pregnant-more-often
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murbard2
"Parasitic worms bore into our organs, steal our nutrients, and sup on our
blood—but their effects aren’t all harmful"

The point of the article is largely that the same is literally true of babies
:)

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humanrebar
And it would be a funnier comparison if people didn't philosophically equate
babies with parasites.

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gizmo686
What do you mean by philosophically? It seems to me that the obvious way to
equate babies with parasites is in a technical sense (they are another
organism surviving by sapping nutrients and resources from the host).

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humanrebar
People often compare fetuses to parasites when they're arguing that abortions
aren't a big deal and/or an entirely personal decision.

I'd consider transplant organs to be a better analogy to unborn humans. At
least both have human DNA.

That's not to say the mechanisms the autoimmune system uses to identify and
reject intruders aren't manipulated by parasites. It is probably true that
learning how that works could help more women have healthy pregnancies.

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abledon
On a related note: [http://www.sciencealert.com/40-patients-are-about-to-be-
infe...](http://www.sciencealert.com/40-patients-are-about-to-be-infected-
with-hookworms-to-treat-gluten-intolerance)

It seems that having certain parasites inside you can increase your capacity
to digest hard/heavy foods. I wonder since liver health is associated with a
woman's fertility[1] (and also digestion), that by introducing organisms which
increase digestive power, you are reducing the stress on the liver so it can
tend to other bodily functions such as fertility.

[1]www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201122223.htm

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ape4
Since humans have lived with parasites for all of our existence until very
recently its not too surprising that there is some benefit from them.

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Cerium
It is in the parasite's interest for there to be more humans in the world.

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pyre
It's a good thing that logic is not lost on them then!

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atlantic
If there are clear benefits, then perhaps some of these species should not be
classified as parasites any longer; it may be more of a symbiotic
relationship.

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Retric
This is likely a side effect from immune system suppression. I suspect it's
probably not a good tradeoff for most people

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simoneau
Whenever I see claims like this, I wonder about the causality. Aren't both
number of children and intestinal worm infection both correlated with poverty?
If so, how did they control for this?

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ceejayoz
> Aren't both number of children and intestinal worm infection both correlated
> with poverty? If so, how did they control for this?

The experimental group is impoverished people with worms. The control group is
impoverished people _without_ worms.

From the article:

> The researchers tried to answer the question by analyzing data on the
> Tsimane people who live in the Amazon rainforest of Bolivia.

> The roughly 16,000 Tsimane survive mainly by hunting, fishing, and raising
> crops such as rice and plantains. Their homeland is prime parasite country.
> About 15% to 20% of them harbor Ascaris, and 56% of them carry hookworms.
> Infected women in the study usually were unaware they were playing host to
> the parasites, Blackwell says.

