TikTokers Try Eating Papaya Seeds to Treat Parasites. Does It Work? - Verywell Health

TikTokers Try Eating Papaya Seeds to Treat Parasites. Does It Work? - Verywell Health
Honeybees, beekeepers battle deadly parasite in Southwest Colorado - The Journal
Goa wants all adults to take Ivermectin. Here's why FDA warned against its use - Hindustan Times

Posted: 20 May 2021 02:52 PM PDT

Getty Images / Verywell Health

Key Takeaways

A new TikTok trend recommends people eat papaya seeds to help treat or prevent possible intestinal parasite infections.
While data is limited, experts say the seeds may actually be beneficial in treating parasites.
If you're going to eat the seeds, start small to avoid upsetting your stomach.

When we think about stomach trouble, many of us never imagine that we may have an actual parasite living in our gut. But parasites entering our gastrointestinal tract—causing some unsavory side-effects—are more common than you may think.

Parasites are living organisms that live off of another organism to survive. When you are infected with a parasite, that organism sets up its home inside of you and depends on what your body offers in order to survive.

"Most people think that parasitic infections are rare, but they're actually very common, even in the United States, even among people who've never left the country," Robin Foroutan, MS, RDN, HHC, integrative medicine dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, tells Verywell. "The idea that parasites are only a problem in underdeveloped countries is entirely flawed."

Without proper treatment, being infected with a parasite can lead to nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. While there are some tried-and-true ways to prevent parasitic infections, trendy home remedies continue to surface on social media. One of the newest parasite-combating home remedies on TikTok is eating papaya seeds.

Yes, those little black circles that are typically scooped out and tossed in the trash are now finding their way on people's spoons to get rid of parasites they may not know they have.

What Are Papaya Seeds?

Like most seeds, papaya seeds are loaded with nutrients like fiber, antioxidants, and healthy fats. And while human studies are lacking, animal and test-tube studies show that eating these seeds may improve kidney health and reduce inflammation.

Some data suggests that a potential downside to eating these little pips could be possible reduced fertility. But this effect was found in research conducted on rats given high doses of papaya seed extract.

Can Papaya Seeds Prevent Parasites?

"Papaya seeds are a traditional parasite remedy that's safe and seems to be pretty effective against certain types of parasites, though there isn't a ton of published data," Foroutan explains.

In one 2007 study published in the Journal of Medicinal Foods, 71.4% of children who were given a combination of dried papaya seeds and honey had their stool cleared of parasites compared with 0 to 15% of children who only took honey after seven days.

And in a trial conducted in school-aged children based in Kenya, a daily serving of porridge that included papaya seeds resulted in a reduction in the Ascaris lumbricoides egg count (indicating a parasitic roundworm infection) by 63.9% after two months. As an added benefit, ringworm was reduced from a 54.4% infection rate to a 34% infection rate.

"The real problem is that most stool tests for parasites are highly unreliable and the majority of them miss most infections, making parasites difficult to find," Foroutan says.

She adds that natural remedies, like using papaya seeds to combat and prevent parasitic infection, withstand the test of time and may end up being valid. Papaya seeds, after all, contain fiber, which helps pass stool and other components through the digestive tract.

What This Means For You

Eating papaya seeds, in moderation, likely won't harm you. And they may even be effective at treating intestinal parasites. But if you think you might be infected, your best bet is to seek medical treatment. Effective treatments exist and delaying treatment can cause harmful side effects like vomiting and diarrhea.

How to Include Papaya Seeds in Your Diet

Foroutan shares that there are two main ways papaya seeds are used:

Drying and grinding the seed to a powder and mixing it with water
Rinsing the whole papaya seeds and eating them with a spoon.

If you plan on eating them whole, Foroutan advises being prepared for a taste that is nothing like papaya flesh. She advises to start small—take 1 tablespoon on your first day and work your way up as your digestive system gets used to the fiber boost.

Looking at the big picture, until there is clinical data to support the use of papaya seeds to prevent parasitic infections, it may be best to save your efforts. If you're worried about a possible intestinal parasite, reach out to a doctor who can help diagnose your stomach issues.

Honeybees, beekeepers battle deadly parasite in Southwest Colorado - The Journal

Posted: 21 May 2021 04:07 AM PDT

Parasitic mite can kill entire hives, bring economic damage

Honeybees face numerous environmental stressors, but a certain kind of mite poses one of their top, most-fatal threats. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

Jerry McBride

One day in 2015, Nancy Logan, a hobbyist beekeeper in La Plata County, noticed a honeybee walking strangely. She looked closer and saw four tiny, red-brown insects on its back.

"I euthanized her, and three more mites jumped off her abdomen," said Logan, now president of the 4 Corners Beekeepers Association. "That one bee had seven mites on her."

She had found the Varroa destructor: an aptly named parasitic mite that can kill an entire hive and inflicts more economic damage than most honeybee diseases. The mites, first discovered in Indonesia in 1904, have spread to every continent except Australia. Beekeepers are trying everything, from thyme to selective breeding, to keep them at bay.

"A very experienced beekeeper told us in a seminar: Every one of you has Varroa mites in your colonies, and they will kill your colony within two to three years if you don't control the population," Logan said. "Now, people are saying they will kill your colony within one season."

The United States honey industry was worth about $4.7 billion in 2017, according to the University of California Agricultural Issues Center. About 22,000 people relied on it for their jobs.

Honeybees are vital pollinators for three out of four crops across the globe. Their importance is celebrated by the United Nations through World Bee Day, May 20.

Angelina Jolie even hopped on board this year, posing for a photo covered in scores of the pollinating insects to raise awareness for a Women for Bees initiative, a program launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The U.S. had 2.98 million colonies as of April 2020, according to the Department of Agriculture. In Colorado, there were 38,000 hives in 2019, according to the Colorado Professional Beekeeping Association.

Lyle Johnston is president of the association and his family has been in beekeeping since 1908. He says they're the oldest honey operation in Colorado.

The family runs 1,500 hives in the San Luis Valley and Salida. One hive can make 130 to 140 pounds of honey a year in perfect conditions.

The Johnstons have been fighting Varroa mites since 1987, when the pest arrived in the United States. The mites, parasites and vectors for viruses, were the No. 1 stressor for bees in 2019, according to a USDA report.

"It happens so quick. Within 90 days, a hive of bees can go from looking healthy down to death," Johnston said.

Bees are vital pollinators for three out of four crops around the globe, according to the United Nations. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

The parasite and the bee

When the Varroa mite – deaf and blind with a piercing, sucking mouth – infests a hive, its first step is to hide.

Then it feeds off bee babies and adults to survive.

"It causes a shorter life span, which means foragers die sooner. Nurse bees become foragers and can't take care of the other bees," said Eric Smith, president of the Colorado State Beekeepers Association, a hobbyist group. "The hive gets smaller."

Honeybees are social insects that live together in well-organized family groups. Thousands of worker bees cooperate in nest building, food collection and brood rearing. Drones are part of the reproductive cycle, and queens can lay up to 1,500 eggs per day.

After the bee drops an egg and some food in a beeswax cell, a Varroa female sneaks in and hides under the larvae from the bees that tend to the brood. There, they feed on the food and the larvae for 10 days while reproducing, according to Varroa life-cycle research.

By the time the young bee hatches, it's carrying multiple mites that can jump to other bees. The Varroa destructor uses the suckers on its feet to grip the bee's body and its mouth to pierce the adult bee's abdomen and feed on its fat bodies, tissue that stores nutrients and serves other uses, like immunity.

The whole process wounds the bees and can shorten their life cycle. Mites lead to crippled and crawling honeybees, impaired flight performance, larvae slumped in the bottom or side of the cell and a lower rate of return to the colony after foraging.

The mites spread numerous viruses to the bees. All of this ultimately causes a reduction in the honeybee population, replacement of queen bees and eventual colony breakdown and death.

"If you're not controlling them, then the viruses are in the hive from the mites," Johnston said. "The viruses are kind of the nail in the coffin. When you get to a certain level, there's no going back."

Defense tactics: Powdered sugar and science

When Logan saw the mite-covered bee in 2015, she quickly realized the colony had a high population of the parasite and started a thyme-based treatment, thymol wafers.

"You do the repeated treatments: Over that month, I think I had thousands of mites drop," Logan said. "That hive was on the brink of dying. It came back."

To manage the population, she tests the hives by using the powdered sugar roll technique: taking half a cup of bees, a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar and shaking them in a mason jar.

The powdered sugar makes it difficult for the mites to hold onto the bees, and they fall through a screen on the jar. A population higher than nine mites means she has to treat, she said.

For his commercial operation, Johnston mixes essential oils, like lemongrass, with a Crisco grease ball and puts it on top of the hive. The fumes, he said, kill mites or at least control their population.

Volunteers and staff members with the 4 Corners Beekeepers Association prepare packages of bees in Durango on April 24. Members picked up 140, 3-pound packages of bees, each containing an average of 11,000 bees. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

Jerry McBride

Johnston and Smith, like researchers around the world, have been experimenting with ways to speed up natural selection using bee species that have a slight resistance to Varroa destructor to help Western honeybees develop defenses against the mites.

Sometimes, beekeepers use formic acid, which occurs naturally in ants, or oxalic acid, an organic compound found in many plants.

They can also divide the colony early in the season, which gives the hive a brood break, a break in the bee reproductive cycle that interrupts the mite reproduction, Logan said.

Many hobbyists don't want to treat for mites, Smith and Johnston said.

"They want to be 'natural beekeepers,' but their bees die. They end up getting them from California," Smith said.

All three association presidents urged beekeepers to do something about the mites. There are plenty of management strategies and soft chemical or organic treatments, Logan said. She doesn't recommend harsher chemicals.

"The main thing I stress, until we become resistant, you have to treat," Johnston said. "You cannot do organic beekeeping or you'll be picking up dead equipment."

smullane@durangoherald.com

An earlier version of this story erred in saying mites were the No. 2 stressor for bees in 2019. They were the No. 1 stressor. The error was made in editing.

Goa wants all adults to take Ivermectin. Here's why FDA warned against its use - Hindustan Times

Posted: 11 May 2021 12:00 AM PDT

Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday said that all adults -- everyone above the age of 18 in the state -- will be given the Ivermectin antiparasitic drug irrespective of their coronavirus disease (Covid-19) status. Although the minister claimed that the medicine has been found to bring down the Covid-19 mortality rate in several countries, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had warned against its use in treating coronavirus patients back in April last year.

Also Read: Every adult in Goa, irrespective of Covid-19 status, to be given Ivermectin drug

Not just the FDA, the Union ministry of health and family welfare had also opted out from including Ivermectin in its official Clinical Management Protocol for Covid-19 last year. Experts of the central government's joint monitoring group and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)'s Covid-19 task force held a meeting to deliberate upon the issue and decided not to include Ivermectin in the clinical management protocol "because of lack of sufficient evidence on its efficacy based on randomised trials held in India and abroad," news agency PTI reported, citing ministry sources.

What is Ivermectin?

Ivermectin is a medication mainly used to treat various types of parasite infections. According to the FDA, Ivermectin is a veterinary drug, often used in the US to treat or prevent parasites in animals. Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Still, Ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans.

Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses), as such, but its use in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) treatment is an unconventional application, according to experts.

What have studies found?

A report, published in Antiviral Research in June last year, clearly mentioned that Ivermectin "warrants further investigation for possible benefits in humans". The drug generated widespread excitement in medical and veterinary journals, which incorrectly described it as a treatment or cure for Covid-19, the report said.

Studies showed that doses much higher than the maximum approved or safely achievable limit for use in humans would be required to achieve an antiviral effect. Such high doses have not been approved for human use, since it would actually prove toxic considering the drug is said to operate via the suppression of a host cellular process.

Also Read: Ivermectin not to be included in Centre's coronavirus management protocol

Although a research group in India summarised the results of four small studies on Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 and showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in survival rate among patients, the authors clearly stated that the quality of the evidence was low and further trials are needed to determine its effectiveness.

A systemic review in November last year concluded that there's "weak evidence" of Ivermectin's benefit when used as add-on therapy in non-severe Covid-19 cases. No difference was found in patients who received a placebo and others who received Ivermectin in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) that year.

FDA's warning against Ivermectin

The FDA found it necessary last year to issue a warning against Ivermectin's use in Covid-19 treatment, as the evidence is not solid enough to come to a conclusion based on multiple small-scale studies.

Ivermectin is recommended against in Covid-19 treatment by the FDA, the European Medicines Agency, and the United States National Institutes of Health -- all of which have stated that better studies and larger trials are needed to determine if the drug has any actual benefits.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned against the use of Ivermectin for Covid-19, except within clinical trials. Saumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist at WHO, tweeted out earlier this day, saying "Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication."

Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. @WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for #COVID19 except within clinical trials https://t.co/dSbDiW5tCW
— Soumya Swaminathan (@doctorsoumya) May 10, 2021

Dr Swaminathan attached a statement from Merck, the German healthcare corporation, on Ivermectin use during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Directives issued in Goa

The state of Goa, however, is proceeding on the path of providing every adult with Ivermectin, despite the lack of strong evidence advocating its benefits.

Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane said that patients will be given Ivermectin 12mg for a period of five days as expert panels from the UK, Italy, Spain, and Japan have found a statistically significant reduction in mortality, time to recovery, and viral clearance in Covid-19 patients treated with this medicine.

The minister said this treatment would not prevent Covid-19 infection but it can help reduce the severity of the disease.

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