{"id":32895,"date":"2021-04-17T14:14:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-17T18:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=32895"},"modified":"2021-04-23T14:18:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T18:18:02","slug":"how-do-parasites-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do Parasites Work if They Damage Their Host?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How do parasites work? Why do they damage their hosts? Wouldn&#8217;t it benefit the parasite to keep its host nourished and healthy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authors of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/why-we-get-sick\/\">Why We Get Sick<\/a> <\/em>explore the science behind how parasites work. They argue that parasites are competitive and that they must fight each other for resources. They also claim that parasites and hosts have reached an equilibrium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn why parasites don&#8217;t help us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Don\u2019t Parasites Help Us?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s an interesting thought\u2014<strong>if parasites use host resources to survive and reproduce, why don\u2019t they help the host thrive and get more resources?<\/strong> The longer the host lives, the more the parasite can reproduce, and the more they can spread offspring to new hosts. This would suggest that the natural evolutionary path of parasites is to gradually become more useful until it becomes indispensable to host survival. So, how do parasites work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authors of <em>Why We Get Sick<\/em> argue this thinking is flawed and ignores two critical points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>First, <strong>this ignores competition between different parasites within the host, and even within the same parasite species<\/strong>.<ul><li>Say that a liver fluke and <em>Shigella<\/em> are competing for the same resources in the host. The one that most effectively exploits those resources will win.<\/li><li>Within the same species, if one parasite selects for cooperation and less virulence, other aggressive members of the species will overtake it in reproduction. The host-friendly gene is rapidly eliminated from the population<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Second, the war between pathogens and humans has existed for millions of years. Parasites go through thousands of generations of reproduction in a host\u2019s lifetime, so it\u2019s likely the current situation is in an equilibrium.&nbsp;<ul><li>In other words, if it were so great for malaria to become helpful to the host, it would have already happened. That malaria still causes disease today suggests that this is malaria\u2019s optimized strategy in today\u2019s environment.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do parasites work? Why do they damage their hosts? Wouldn&#8217;t it benefit the parasite to keep its host nourished and healthy? The authors of Why We Get Sick explore the science behind how parasites work. They argue that parasites are competitive and that they must fight each other for resources. They also claim that parasites and hosts have reached an equilibrium. Keep reading to learn why parasites don&#8217;t help us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,160],"tags":[265],"class_list":["post-32895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-science","tag-why-we-get-sick","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Do Parasites Work if They Damage Their Host? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wouldn&#039;t it benefit parasites more if their hosts were healthy and nourished? The authors of Why We Get Sick argue that&#039;s flawed thinking.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Do Parasites Work if They Damage Their Host?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wouldn&#039;t it benefit parasites more if their hosts were healthy and nourished? The authors of Why We Get Sick argue that&#039;s flawed thinking.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-17T18:14:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-23T18:18:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raw-food.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1408\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"808\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hannah Aster\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f39f52830e4f7039a16e45d12354542f\"},\"headline\":\"How Do Parasites Work if They Damage Their Host?\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-17T18:14:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-23T18:18:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\"},\"wordCount\":333,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raw-food.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Why We Get Sick\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Health\",\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/\",\"name\":\"How Do Parasites Work if They Damage Their Host? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-parasites-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raw-food.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-17T18:14:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-23T18:18:02+00:00\",\"description\":\"Wouldn't it benefit parasites more if their hosts were healthy and nourished? 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