Unexpected “bubble”: how to avoid parasites and not put them on your plate

Parasitic worms, their eggs and larvae are a common cause of anxiety. Indeed, getting infected with helminths and having helminthiasis is far from pleasant. But how do parasites get into our bodies? One of the most common ways told in the press service of Rospotrebnadzor in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region.

It turns out that most often uninvited “bubbles” enter the human body through everyday food. Not even exotic! A variety of products can be dangerous.

First of all, the classics are fish and fish products. They have a high biological value and many other advantages, but are often a source of infection with diphyllobotriosis, opisthorchiosis, anizakidosis. The danger may be raw or insufficiently heat-treated products, slightly salted fish, dried, smoked.

Meat and meat products can also give you a new unpleasant neighbor inside. Products of inadequate quality can cause the development of teniarynchosis, trichinosis and teniasis. Infection occurs when eating meat with helminth larvae without heat treatment.

Not the most obvious option, but vegetables, fruits, berries and greens can also be “carriers” of helminths. Despite the content of vitamins and minerals in these products, they can become a factor in the transmission of ascariasis, trichocephalosis and echinococcosis. You can get infected through poorly washed vegetables and fruits on which helminth eggs were.

In this case, it is important to remember that with the eyes of the eggs of parasites or themselves you can hardly see - they are too small. Therefore, to be safe, you should always wash the products and cook them well. In Rospotrebnadzor, it is advised to regularly wash your hands with soap after contact with the soil and visiting the toilet, cook and roast meat and fish well, exclude thermally untreated seafood from the diet and buy food only in checked places.

The main symptoms of helminthiasis are considered abdominal pain, nausea, sometimes vomiting, unstable stools (diarrhea or constipation) and actual helminths in the feces.