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The National Enquirer says that Obama is "scary skinny" because he's "secretly battling stomach parasites."

Sorry. It's slimy even to link to this. But I'm linking to debunk it.

The pencil-thin president caught the parasites on a trip last year to Hawaii, where he and his family also vacationed over Christmas, according to top political insiders.

If that were really true, people would be flocking to Hawaii to get the parasites so they could lose weight. Oh? You think that's absurd? People wouldn't do that? They get surgery on their stomachs? surgery that could kill them ? and that only makes them lose weight because they eat less. If there were parasites that made you ultra-thin, people would buy them and swallow them whole. We'd be seeing ads on the internet.



You've heard of tapeworm dieting, haven't you?

Did anybody honest to God think this would work? Answer: Evidently. A few seconds with Google turns up an authentic-looking advertisement for "sanitized tapeworms" ("friends for a fair form") that appears to date from the turn of the last century. A hoax? Maybe, but it convinced at least one medical expert, endocrinologist Zachary Bloomgarden, who in a 2000 article in Diabetes Care wrote, "Approaches to decreasing nutrient absorption date from the early 1900s, when diet treatment with 'sanitized tapeworms' was widely advertised."

It's a terrible idea, I hasten to add:

An adult tapeworm can grow up to 50 feet long and live up to 20 years. Tapeworm eggs are even worse, as the larvae that emerge from them are prone to burrow out of your intestines and find homes elsewhere in your body. For example, the pork tapeworm can cause neurocysticercosis, in which the larvae migrate through the stomach or intestinal lining and up into your brain. There they form destructive cysts, triggering immune responses that can lead to epileptic seizures or worse. The cysts formed by sheep tapeworm larvae may reach the size of grapefruit; they can rupture blood vessels when they break, resulting in shock and death.

Death, schmeath, you say: will I lose weight?...

That is the way people think. I say if the National Enquirer were right about the President's parasites, somebody would be selling Presidential Parasites on the internet.

And, seriously, I hope the President is okay. And if he's healthy-skinny, he ought to give us some diet tips along with the usual inspiration.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 19, 2011 (boomark / email).