A US man was given an unlikely diagnosis for his headaches after his usual migraine medication stopped working.
The 52-year-old had scans that revealed tapeworm larvae in his brain. He responded well to anti-parasitic and anti-inflammatory medication and has made a full recovery. The unusual case has exposed the dangers of poor food hygiene and the importance of thoroughly cooking meat.
Here is what you need to know about the condition.
What is cysticercosis?
Neurocysticercosis is a parasitic infection of the brain. The condition is caused by larval cysts of the pork tapeworm - sacs containing the immature stage of the parasite.
The cysts can infect various parts of the body causing a condition known as cysticercosis. When they infect the brain, such as in the US patient’s case, the condition is known as neurocysticercosis – and can be fatal.
Does eating undercooked meat cause it?
This is going to get more disgusting before we can get to an answer. The answer is both yes and no.
When questioned by medics the man “admitted to a habit of eating lightly cooked, non-crispy bacon for most of his life”, according to an article in the American Journal of Case Reports. This is the general understanding of how a tapeworm is contacted. However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cysticercosis cannot be contracted by eating undercooked pork.
“Eating undercooked pork can result in intestinal tapeworm if the pork contains larval cysts,” it adds.
But cysticercosis is contracted by swallowing eggs found in the faeces of someone with an intestinal tapeworm.
“Our patient’s lifelong preference for soft bacon may have led to instances of undercooked bacon consumption,” medics wrote in the journal report. “But this would have caused him to develop taeniasis, an intestinal tapeworm, and not cysticercosis.”
Medics speculated that given the man’s “predilection for undercooked pork” led him to contract a pork tapeworm, before contracting cysticercosis by ingesting tapeworm eggs through “improper handwashing”.
In a nutshell, the case is unusual - but in order to prevent this from happening, make sure to cook pork thoroughly and wash your hands before and after cooking food and using the loo.
