Question: what symptoms do tape worms give humans?

Marisol Collins answered on 10 Nov 2016:

Hi Holly, different tapeworms can give humans different symptoms. I’ll give you two very different examples (warning – this might be a bit gross!): If a human gets a tapeworm called Taenia, it can cause stomach pains, vomiting, diarrhoea, liver problems and weight loss. You can also see bits of the worm, called ‘segments’ being passed in the poo – these look a bit like grains of rice that wriggle. There are other tapeworms that humans can get, and my research is about one of them. It’s called Echinocococcus as it’s really tiny, but it causes a nasty disease in humans called Hydatid Disease. The worm causes big cysts (like fluid filled balloons) to develop in the liver and lungs, and these can cause people to become very ill. Pretty gross, huh?