Thoraiya DyerThe Parasite Reflex: Another mangled take on mainstream medicine. Ban furniture instead.
January 19th 2009 00:27
The alternate therapy fliers are coming thick and fast these days. Most recently, it’s the so-called “Parasite Reflex” which has gotten my goat. Or should I say gotten my gastrointestinal Giardia?
“Novel forms of therapy,” I am told, “should not be rejected just because they come from an unconventional source.”
Fair enough. It’s good to be open-minded. But I am curious to know where “unconventional” ends and “purely made up” begins.
I mean, I have a good imagination. What if I decided, one day, that furniture was unnatural and was the cause of obesity? What if I set up a website showing that when humans lived as hunter-gatherers before the advent of civilisation, we had no furniture, and we had no obesity, either?
Makes sense! Good theory! Furniture causes fatness. I can sell a book called “the no-furniture secret”, and if people don’t lose weight, I can always tell them it’s too late because they spent so much time using furniture as children. They have been permanently affected by furniture use. Here’s a DVD of non-furniture visualisations for only $199.95. Practice them every day.
Could be a real money-spinner.
The point is, without testing in proper trials, you don’t know what’s made up.
Without regulations, you don’t know who’s for real and who’s taking you for a ride.
And here’s just one example of being taken for a ride: The Parasite Reflex.
( Really Long Link )
Now, this is not the same people who dropped the junk mail in my letterbox, but it’s the same idea.
Basically, they want you to believe that:
“If you lay your hand just inside the patient's left hip and beneath their umbilicus, the palm of your hand will be over the Parasite reflex…This Indicates that the patient has parasites. The waste products of these parasites are backing up into the lymph system and poisoning the whole body.”
Sounds alarming!
What should we do about it?
“Nutritional Treatment: Use 6 Zymex® II, per day, for 8 weeks. The Zymex® II is an enzyme which digests the parasites. It is best to take this nutrition on an empty stomach such as between meals or before bedtime.”
Now that sure is interesting. But there are several problems with it.
One: That parasites can be sensed by laying your hand over the abdomen.
If we borrow a picture of the anatomy of the abdomen from here ( Really Long Link ):
…we see that the area indicated is a section of small intestine or possibly colon. Could you, perhaps, feel the parasites squirming around?
Urban Campus Biology Department ( Really Long Link ) provide a tidy list of human parasites which include protozoans (single-cell organisms such as amoebas) and helminths (worms).
According to UC Davis ( Really Long Link nematode size&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au ), gastrointestinal worms range in size from 1mm to about 6 metres (whale parasites) – but according to the CDC, ( Really Long Link ):
“Most people have no symptoms that are noticeable, but infection may cause slower growth and slower weight gain. If you are heavily infected, you may have abdominal pain. Sometimes, while the immature worms migrate through the lungs, you may cough and have difficulty breathing. If you have a very heavy worm infection, your intestines may become blocked.”
But that’s not what the “reflex” is all about, anyway. The reflex” is a “tingling” that practitioners get in their fingers when the parasites’ “waste products” back up into “the lymph.”
Sound scientific?
Well, it does until you read this:
“Although the diet may be extremely varied, the nematode digestive system is relatively uniform throughout the phylum…The mouth opens into a muscular pharynx, which acts as a pump to bring food from the mouth into the intestine ... From the pharynx, a long tubular intestine travels the length of the body to the anus. Digestive enzymes are produced by the single layer of epithelial cells lining the intestine.”
( Really Long Link )
It seems that worms eat and poop just like any other animal eats and poops, and there are no special poisons – just teeny, tiny worm poops that mix in with the enormous chunks of human poop that can already be found in the large intestine.
And what about the lymph? Does anyone actually know what that is?
“One of the amazing things about lymph is that we all have it but we generally know nothing about it. Your entire body is soaked in lymph and there is a whole lymph vessel system that is just as complex as your blood vessels!
Every human has a heart, arteries, veins, blood vessels and ultimately capillaries. Blood carries many different things to the cells, including:
Oxygen (blood also picks up carbon dioxide so it can be exhaled)
Proteins
Glucose
White blood cells (to find and eliminate bacteria, viruses and other foreign materials)
Capillaries flow past cells but do not actually connect to them. What happens is that the clear, watery blood plasma -- containing the oxygen, proteins, glucose and white blood cells -- "leaks" out through the capillary walls and flows around all the cells.
The pores in the capillaries are too small to let red blood cells through, however -- that is why lymph is clear rather than red.
All of the cells in your body are therefore bathed in lymph, and they receive their nutrients and oxygen from the lymph.
Somehow, all of this lymph has to end up somewhere, so it is recirculated. The lymph capillaries and vessels pick up the lymph fluid and start pumping it away from the cells. Lymph vessels do not have an active pump like the heart. Instead, lymph vessels have one-way valves, and muscle motion pumps the lymph. You have just as many lymph vessels and capillaries as you have blood vessels and capillaries!
Lymph in the lymph vessels eventually reaches a lymph node -- there are about 100 nodes scattered throughout the body. Lymph nodes filter the lymph and also contain large numbers of white blood cells (a big part of the immune system), which remove foreign cells and debris from the lymph.
( Really Long Link )
Looks like worm poop, which can be found in tiny amounts in your intestines, doesn’t actually make it into the bloodstream. Without getting into the bloodstream, it can’t get into the cells. Without getting into the cells, it can’t get into the lymph.
That’s the end of the beautiful “Parasite Reflex” dream.
Oh, but I almost forgot about the miracle cure!
The “enzyme” which digests the parasites!
“Zymex II contains the proteolytic enzymes papain, bromelain, and ficin, that are all found in certain plants and play an important role in digestive system function. In addition to the three proteolytic enzymes, Zymex II also contains amylase - another hydrolytic enzyme that triggers the process of breaking down starch into smaller carbohydrate molecules. Zymex II also contains lipase, an enzyme produced by organs of the digestive system to stimulate the breakdown of lipids.”
So. A bunch of plant enzymes (not useful for digesting parasites), plus amylase and lipase – which are already produced in our digestive tracts.
“Digestion begins in the mouth, where chewing reduces the food to fine texture, and saliva moistens it and begins the conversion of starch into simple sugars by means of an enzyme, salivary amylase. The food is then swallowed, passing through the pharynx and down the muscular esophagus, or gullet, to the expanded muscular pouchlike section of the gastrointestinal tract, the stomach. Specialized cells in the stomach secrete digestive enzymes and gastric juices, which act on the partially digested food. The stomach also physically churns and mixes the food. The stomach secretions include the enzyme pepsin, which acts on proteins; hydrochloric acid, essential for the action of pepsin; and an enzyme, gastric lipase, which begins the breakdown of fats.”
…and then, later…
“Digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile from the liver act in the duodenum. These enzymes include pancreatic lipase, which breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids; pancreatic amylase, which continues the breakdown of starches and most other carbohydrates into disaccharides; and trypsin and erepsin, which break down whole and partially digested proteins (proteoses and peptones) into amino acids, the end products of protein digestion. Bile is essential for emulsifying large fat globules into smaller ones that are more easily digested by pancreatic lipase.”
( Really Long Link )
In fact, you only need to take these if you have something wrong with your pancreas ( Really Long Link ).
So how do you REALLY diagnose parasitic infections?
The CDC ( Really Long Link ) lists a variety of diagnostic procedures that include blood, stool, serum and tissue samples.
Whatever you do, don’t try and feel a mystical tingling in your fingers.
If you do, it’s probably just gas.
Or too much furniture.
“Novel forms of therapy,” I am told, “should not be rejected just because they come from an unconventional source.”
Fair enough. It’s good to be open-minded. But I am curious to know where “unconventional” ends and “purely made up” begins.
I mean, I have a good imagination. What if I decided, one day, that furniture was unnatural and was the cause of obesity? What if I set up a website showing that when humans lived as hunter-gatherers before the advent of civilisation, we had no furniture, and we had no obesity, either?
Makes sense! Good theory! Furniture causes fatness. I can sell a book called “the no-furniture secret”, and if people don’t lose weight, I can always tell them it’s too late because they spent so much time using furniture as children. They have been permanently affected by furniture use. Here’s a DVD of non-furniture visualisations for only $199.95. Practice them every day.
Could be a real money-spinner.
The point is, without testing in proper trials, you don’t know what’s made up.
Without regulations, you don’t know who’s for real and who’s taking you for a ride.
And here’s just one example of being taken for a ride: The Parasite Reflex.
( Really Long Link )
Now, this is not the same people who dropped the junk mail in my letterbox, but it’s the same idea.
Basically, they want you to believe that:
“If you lay your hand just inside the patient's left hip and beneath their umbilicus, the palm of your hand will be over the Parasite reflex…This Indicates that the patient has parasites. The waste products of these parasites are backing up into the lymph system and poisoning the whole body.”
Sounds alarming!
What should we do about it?
“Nutritional Treatment: Use 6 Zymex® II, per day, for 8 weeks. The Zymex® II is an enzyme which digests the parasites. It is best to take this nutrition on an empty stomach such as between meals or before bedtime.”
Now that sure is interesting. But there are several problems with it.
One: That parasites can be sensed by laying your hand over the abdomen.
If we borrow a picture of the anatomy of the abdomen from here ( Really Long Link ):
…we see that the area indicated is a section of small intestine or possibly colon. Could you, perhaps, feel the parasites squirming around?
Urban Campus Biology Department ( Really Long Link ) provide a tidy list of human parasites which include protozoans (single-cell organisms such as amoebas) and helminths (worms).
According to UC Davis ( Really Long Link nematode size&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au ), gastrointestinal worms range in size from 1mm to about 6 metres (whale parasites) – but according to the CDC, ( Really Long Link ):
“Most people have no symptoms that are noticeable, but infection may cause slower growth and slower weight gain. If you are heavily infected, you may have abdominal pain. Sometimes, while the immature worms migrate through the lungs, you may cough and have difficulty breathing. If you have a very heavy worm infection, your intestines may become blocked.”
But that’s not what the “reflex” is all about, anyway. The reflex” is a “tingling” that practitioners get in their fingers when the parasites’ “waste products” back up into “the lymph.”
Sound scientific?
Well, it does until you read this:
“Although the diet may be extremely varied, the nematode digestive system is relatively uniform throughout the phylum…The mouth opens into a muscular pharynx, which acts as a pump to bring food from the mouth into the intestine ... From the pharynx, a long tubular intestine travels the length of the body to the anus. Digestive enzymes are produced by the single layer of epithelial cells lining the intestine.”
( Really Long Link )
It seems that worms eat and poop just like any other animal eats and poops, and there are no special poisons – just teeny, tiny worm poops that mix in with the enormous chunks of human poop that can already be found in the large intestine.
And what about the lymph? Does anyone actually know what that is?
“One of the amazing things about lymph is that we all have it but we generally know nothing about it. Your entire body is soaked in lymph and there is a whole lymph vessel system that is just as complex as your blood vessels!
Every human has a heart, arteries, veins, blood vessels and ultimately capillaries. Blood carries many different things to the cells, including:
Oxygen (blood also picks up carbon dioxide so it can be exhaled)
Proteins
Glucose
White blood cells (to find and eliminate bacteria, viruses and other foreign materials)
Capillaries flow past cells but do not actually connect to them. What happens is that the clear, watery blood plasma -- containing the oxygen, proteins, glucose and white blood cells -- "leaks" out through the capillary walls and flows around all the cells.
The pores in the capillaries are too small to let red blood cells through, however -- that is why lymph is clear rather than red.
All of the cells in your body are therefore bathed in lymph, and they receive their nutrients and oxygen from the lymph.
Somehow, all of this lymph has to end up somewhere, so it is recirculated. The lymph capillaries and vessels pick up the lymph fluid and start pumping it away from the cells. Lymph vessels do not have an active pump like the heart. Instead, lymph vessels have one-way valves, and muscle motion pumps the lymph. You have just as many lymph vessels and capillaries as you have blood vessels and capillaries!
Lymph in the lymph vessels eventually reaches a lymph node -- there are about 100 nodes scattered throughout the body. Lymph nodes filter the lymph and also contain large numbers of white blood cells (a big part of the immune system), which remove foreign cells and debris from the lymph.
( Really Long Link )
Looks like worm poop, which can be found in tiny amounts in your intestines, doesn’t actually make it into the bloodstream. Without getting into the bloodstream, it can’t get into the cells. Without getting into the cells, it can’t get into the lymph.
That’s the end of the beautiful “Parasite Reflex” dream.
Oh, but I almost forgot about the miracle cure!
The “enzyme” which digests the parasites!
“Zymex II contains the proteolytic enzymes papain, bromelain, and ficin, that are all found in certain plants and play an important role in digestive system function. In addition to the three proteolytic enzymes, Zymex II also contains amylase - another hydrolytic enzyme that triggers the process of breaking down starch into smaller carbohydrate molecules. Zymex II also contains lipase, an enzyme produced by organs of the digestive system to stimulate the breakdown of lipids.”
So. A bunch of plant enzymes (not useful for digesting parasites), plus amylase and lipase – which are already produced in our digestive tracts.
“Digestion begins in the mouth, where chewing reduces the food to fine texture, and saliva moistens it and begins the conversion of starch into simple sugars by means of an enzyme, salivary amylase. The food is then swallowed, passing through the pharynx and down the muscular esophagus, or gullet, to the expanded muscular pouchlike section of the gastrointestinal tract, the stomach. Specialized cells in the stomach secrete digestive enzymes and gastric juices, which act on the partially digested food. The stomach also physically churns and mixes the food. The stomach secretions include the enzyme pepsin, which acts on proteins; hydrochloric acid, essential for the action of pepsin; and an enzyme, gastric lipase, which begins the breakdown of fats.”
…and then, later…
“Digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile from the liver act in the duodenum. These enzymes include pancreatic lipase, which breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids; pancreatic amylase, which continues the breakdown of starches and most other carbohydrates into disaccharides; and trypsin and erepsin, which break down whole and partially digested proteins (proteoses and peptones) into amino acids, the end products of protein digestion. Bile is essential for emulsifying large fat globules into smaller ones that are more easily digested by pancreatic lipase.”
( Really Long Link )
In fact, you only need to take these if you have something wrong with your pancreas ( Really Long Link ).
So how do you REALLY diagnose parasitic infections?
The CDC ( Really Long Link ) lists a variety of diagnostic procedures that include blood, stool, serum and tissue samples.
Whatever you do, don’t try and feel a mystical tingling in your fingers.
If you do, it’s probably just gas.
Or too much furniture.
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