Does the Tapeworm Diet Work for Weight Loss?

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I’ve seen a lot of strange diets for weight loss but sometimes, patients will ask me about diets that still make my jaw drop.

I mean, I get that people will do a lot of things for the sake of losing weight, but there are some things that are just not worth it. Let’s talk about The Tapeworm Diet.

What is it?

The idea is that you’d infect yourself with a tapeworm, by swallowing the tapeworm egg, then allow it to grow inside your intestines.

Tapeworms are parasites that attach to the insides of human hosts, then feed off the host, any food that passes by.

Some people hope that by having a tapeworm living inside you, any food you eat would be eaten mostly by the tapeworm, resulting in less calories being absorbed into your body, and helping you to lose weight.

The claim is that you’d be able to eat whatever you want, and you can still lose weight. Fascinating.

History of the Tapeworm Diet

The tapeworm diet was borne out of the Victorian Era, and it’s unusual standards for beauty.

Back then tiny waists of 16 inches were desirable, and women wore extremely restrictive corsets to achieve these unnatural results. Weight loss and slimming were achieved by any means necessary.

In fact tapeworm eggs were sold as supplements back then, and had advertisements selling these things.

The standard for beauty back then, was to look like you had tuberculosis, pale skin, dilated eyes, rosy red cheeks and lips, and, of course, a tiny waist.

People even took small doses of poison like ammonia to look like that.

So It’s not surprising then something like the tapeworm diet would come out of a time like that.

The FDA has since banned the import and sale of tapeworms.

All about tapeworms

Tapeworms are a class of parasitic worms that have a life cycle that involves living inside of a host.

Tapeworms that infect humans follow similar life stages, starting with an egg being consumed by a host, usually by inadvertently consuming uncooked meat, fish, or food contaminated by infected fecal matter.

The egg passes into the intestines, where it penetrates deeply into the mucosal lining. From there, it can migrate to other areas of the body, and grow into long, segmented worms, feeding off the nutrition of its host.

There are a number of common human tapeworms. Lets go over four of them, The pork, fish,beef, and dwarf tapeworm.

Pork tapeworm

The pork tapeworm, as its name suggests, is usually caused by eating infected raw pork.

Once a human is infected, it normally grows to 2 to 3 m in length, but can become much larger, sometimes over 8 m long.

The problem is that the pork tapeworm can migrate to other areas of the body once they penetrate the gut lining, causing Cysticercosis.

In Cysticercosis, the pork tapeworm can burrow through the gut lining, and find its way into muscles, skin, your eyes, and your brain.

In fact, the pork tapeworm prefers to burrow into brain tissue, with infections causing epilepsy, seizures, and blindness. It’s pretty nasty.

Fish tapeworm

The fish tapeworm, usually caused by eating raw or uncooked fish, grows even longer, with an average of 10 meters in length.

Fish tapeworm infections can sometimes cause heavy immune responses and cytokine reactions due to the massive amounts of eggs that fish tapeworms release into the stools, around 1 million eggs per day, for one worm!

There are concerns of eating sashimi, or raw fish, and getting fish tapeworms. In Canada, any fish that is to be consumed raw, must first be frozen at a temperature of -20 Celcius or below for 7 days, or to a temperature of -35 Celcius for 15 hours. This process kills any tapeworm eggs or larvae.

Beef tapeworm

Beef tapeworms, again, usually caused by eating raw beef, tend to be the largest of the tapeworms, reaching a possible 22 meters (or 72 feet) in length.

Imagine a worm the height of your body, multiplied like 13 times, in your intestines.

It’s not surprising that severe beef tapeworm infections can cause intestinal blockages that require surgical removal.

Dwarf tapeworm

The dwarf tapeworm, usually found in the stools of infected rodents, mice, or bugs, tend to be the smallest of the human tapeworms, reaching only about 4 cm in length.

It commonly infects children living in unsanitary conditions.

Side effects of the Tapeworm Diet

The pork tapeworm can cause cysticercosis, resulting in hard nodules under the skin, and neurological damage.

However, mild fish, beef, and dwarf tapeworm infections can be mostly asymptomatic.

This is because of those four tapeworms, only the pork tapeworm spreads outside the intestines in humans, and causes infections in other tissues.

The other 3 generally remain in the intestinal system, and can cause all kinds of gastrointestinal symptoms, things like diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, nausea, and changes in appetite.

This is likely the reason why most people avoided using the pork tapeworm for this tapeworm diet.

Nutrient deficiencies like B12 deficiencies are possible in longer-term, heavier infections, causing a host of symptoms including pernicious anemia, dizziness, weakness, fatigue and so on.

When tapeworm infections are more severe, the tapeworm can clump up and cause intestinal blockages, requiring surgical removal to clear such infections.

Is the Tapeworm Diet actually effective?

Theoretically, it should cause weight loss. However, finding actual evidence of the effectiveness of the tapeworm diet is quite difficult.

Most medical sources include weight loss and malnutrition as symptoms of tapeworm infections, however just because it’s listed as a possible symptom, doesn’t mean it actually happens often.

Additionally there are documented case reports of tapeworm infections leading to no changes in weight, or actual increases in weight gain, due to the tapeworm causing increased appetite and hunger in victims.

Finally, it’s important to remember that most tapeworm infections, particularly those of the beef, fish, and dwarf tapeworms, typically present asymptomatically, especially in adults.

That is, they have no discernable symptoms at all, no nausea, no abdominal pain, and no weight loss.

Weight loss is simply not a common symptom of regular tapeworm infections. In fact, Most of the literature I could find about tapeworms definitively causing weight loss came from growth stunting in infected children, or from heavily infected individuals.

So to answer the question, is the tapeworm diet effective?

Not likely. If anything, you may gain some weight due to an increase in hunger. And you’re probably more likely to just get diarrhea or some random gastrointestinal problems from it.

If you do lose weight from it, you’ll probably be in the small minority of people who actually experience weight loss from tapeworm infections, or you’ll likely have to be very heavily infected with it, at which point the problems that it causes would probably not make it worth doing anymore.

Learn more about

• What Could Happen If You Lose Weight Too Fast

See also

• 
  The Glycemic Index Diet: an overview
  The Glycemic Index diet focuses on foods that are lower in glycemic index and load, which can help with diabetes and weight loss.
• 
  Low FODMAP Diet: an overview
  The low FODMAP diet aims to reduce certain types of carbs that can cause bloating and gas. It can sometimes help reduce symptoms of IBS.
• 
  Paleo diet: an overview
  The paleo diet replicates our ancestors diet with wild game, fish, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, while avoiding dairy, grains, and legumes.
• 
  Anti-inflammatory diet: an overview
  The anti-inflammatory diet focuses on eating foods that have anti-inflammatory properties, and avoiding pro-inflammatory foods.
• 
  Gastric Balloon Diet Plan
  Once you have a gastric balloon, properly transitioning from liquids on day 1 to 3, to solids by day 14, is key to success on your balloon.