A man hospitalized with mysterious seizures was diagnosed with tapeworms that had been living in his brain for decades

#1:A man hospitalized with mysterious seizures was diagnosed with tapeworms that had been living in his brain for decades

 

 A man suffering from seizures, disorientation, and "speaking gibberish" had tapeworms in his brain.
Doctors in the new case study said he had carried the parasites for years without symptoms.
Parasites are uncommon for most people, and good hygiene and proper cooking can prevent them.
Doctors who treated a man hospitalized with seizures, disorientation, and strange behavior said tapeworms had been living in his brain for years undetected, according to a case study published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The 38-year-old man appeared to be in perfect health until one night when his wife awoke to find him on the floor, shaking and "speaking gibberish," according to the case report.
He was hospitalized, and doctors treated him for a seizure, noting that he was unresponsive to questions and seemed to be involuntarily gazing at the ceiling.
The man had no notable history of illness, no medication or drug use, and no symptoms until the seizures, his family told doctors.
The medical team at Massachusetts General Hospital eventually provided a diagnosis of cysticercosis, otherwise known as a tapeworm infection, which was confirmed via brain scans and blood testing.
Tapeworm infections can go undetected for years and can travel to the brain, causing seizures
Two decades earlier, the patient had emigrated from a rural area in Guatemala, where parasite-related illness is endemic, according to the case study.
Parasites from eating undercooked and unsanitary meat or fish can be passed from person to person if people with infections don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Tiny parasite eggs in the person's poop can spread to other surfaces, or even food, and be ingested by someone else, passing the worms along.
Symptoms of infection include digestive upset, weight loss, and abdominal pain. But the parasite doesn't necessarily stay in your digestive system. The critters' larvae can also migrate throughout the body, into the muscle, and to the brain via the bloodstream, potentially causing a range of symptoms.
For instance, in a similar case of parasite-related seizures from 2019, a 43-year-old man in China complained of headaches, leading to the discovery of hundreds of tapeworms inside his brain. The symptoms, including seizures, started about a month after he dined on a pork hot pot he "felt unsure about."
In one 2020 case study, a woman complained of a sore throat, and doctors found an inch-long parasitic roundworm in her tonsil, most likely caused by sashimi she ate five days earlier.
It can also take years for symptoms to appear, however, since the parasites' eggs can lie in wait inside the body without prompting an immune response, Ars Technica reported.
Parasites can be dangerous, but infections are uncommon in the US
In regions where parasites are more common, including parts of Asia and Central America, as many as half of epilepsy cases are related to tapeworm infections in the brain, according to research. Tapeworms, specifically, can also be found in some parts of the US including Texas, Southern California, and New York City, according to the case study.

READ MORE - A man hospitalized with mysterious seizures was diagnosed with tapeworms that had been living in his brain for decades

Stephanie Grisham says 'paranoid' Trump held off-the-books meetings, as the Jan. 6 committee seeks to obtain White House records

#1:Stephanie Grisham says 'paranoid' Trump held off-the-books meetings, as the Jan. 6 committee seeks to obtain White House records

 

 Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham appeared on CNN over the weekend.
She said Trump held off-book meetings whose contents likely weren't recorded.
Her comments come as the Jan. 6 commission seeks extensive records on Trump's activities during the Capitol riot.
Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said former President Donald Trump held off-the-books meetings in the White House to ensure they were not recorded in the National Archive.
Grisham's remarks, made in a Saturday interview with CNN's Jim Acosta, came as she addressed the bid by the House January 6 select committee to secure records from the White House archives on Trump's activities that day.
Grisham, who recently wrote a tell-all of her time working as Trump's press secretary and a senior aide to first lady Melania Trump, said Trump took extraordinary steps to keep information off the record.
She said that Trump held many meetings in his White House residence, away from where the president fulfills official duties.
"Because the president at the time was so paranoid of leaks ... a lot of meetings took place in the residence," she said.
"Number one, so that he could keep track of who was in there and that if it leaked out, he could try to figure that out.
"But number two, so that it was very much kept off the books and documents and anything that was written down could probably be thrown in the trash where people can't come and retrieve them to put into the archives."
She added: "That happened quite a bit and I'm sure the select committee is aware of that and is looking into that."
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Watch her CNN interview here:
—Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 13, 2021
The January 6 committee is seeking extensive records from Trump's final months in office, which the former president has attempted to block from release, citing executive privilege to argue that they should be shielded from the public.
On Friday, a US judge granted Trump's attorneys a temporary block on the release of the records as they prepare a legal challenge. President Joe Biden has said that the records are not shielded under executive privilege because Trump is no longer president.
The panel is also seeking testimony from top Trump allies and aides. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon defied a subpoena for testimony, and on Friday was indicted on charges of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury.
Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, also defied a subpoena to appear before the committee, and said he won't cooperate until the legal battle over the scope of Trump's executive privilege is resolved.
In her CNN interview, Grisham said Meadows was involved in planning some of the off-the-books meetings, and should be a focus of the inquiry.
"Mark Meadows was one towards the end who was definitely helping to plan those meetings so I think Mark Meadows should be spoken to, I think that he will stall," she said.

READ MORE - Stephanie Grisham says 'paranoid' Trump held off-the-books meetings, as the Jan. 6 committee seeks to obtain White House records