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Comment by SapporoChris | Hacker News Reader

CDC estimates about 60 million are effected by parasites in USA. which is about 17 or 18%.

Gut cleanse, colon cleanse, detoxing. None of this is supported by science. Nor would any of these things cure, prevent or in anyway help a parasitic infection.

Here are some common parasitic infections and how they're treated. None of these treatments recommend gut cleanse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia#Infection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#Treatment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascariasis#Treatment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm_infection#Treatment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinworm_infection#Treatment

Gut inflammation can be a problem, but I would not recommend treating it or even diagnosing it without evidence.

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I was thinking of the 60% global statistic. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbio...

I had gut dysbiosis for the past couple of years. Went to an alternative/func doctor and she helped me do a program such as this, in a safe manner: https://www.gutprotocols.com/products/full-moon-kit-parasite...

While yes this isn’t scientifically backed, because there’s just no clinical trials yet, doesn’t mean it is bunk. I did a program myself and it fixed all of my problems. My stool inflammatory markers went down drastically, as did my myriad of symptoms that caused me issues every day.

Perhaps I was wrong in strongly recommending people just go do this randomly without any doctor oversight. Whatever. I just wanted to offer my experience because it helped me and can help others. Take it or leave it.

"It is estimated that the global prevalence of some of these diseases already exceeds 60% among the more than three billion people living in parasite endemic areas." https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbio...

This is an interesting statistic, but it is not a global statistic.

Gut cleanses are probably stupid but I wonder if people would benefit from taking antiparasitics prophylactically. It's not something I've ever done, but I eat sashimi pretty regularly and wonder if I should take something like praziquantel because I'm probably at risk for Japanese broad tapeworm, and the symptoms are mild enough I can't really tell without testing, but the price of actually testing is much higher than just taking a drug with a great safety profile.

For similar reasons, I also wonder about people who consume raw milk. These people are more likely to endorse ivermectin for e.g. covid, because it made them feel much better. Maybe it's possible these people aren't lying about that, but not because it cured their covid.

Gut cleanses is really just a herbal medicine protocol you do for a few weeks. Herbal medicine is not stupid, it has been used for thousands of years. Hell even some pharmaceutical drugs use herbs.

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