Tyra Banks' Tapeworm Diet

sfgate.com

First, insert stunned silence.

Now, awkward throat clearing.

Tyra Banks touts the tapeworm diet. The diet which starts when you eat a tapeworm.

One of these:

OK, you eat it as an egg, but still! Tapeworms can grow up to 50 feet long in your intestines. They attach to your intestine and, yes, consume some of the calories that you eat. Often, they cause no symptoms, but they can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, and even, in rare cases, seizures.

To get rid of the tapeworm, you take a drug and then you poop out the giant dead worm.

The tapeworm diet, thankfully, is illegal in the United States.

There was all sorts of madness yesterday on The Tyra Banks Show — which shouldn’t surprise most people, but we were genuinely impressed with the amount of stupidity squished into one full hour of television.

 According to The Tapeworm Diet Review, “[The Tapeworm] secretes proteins in our intestinal tract that make our digestion of food much less efficient. A less efficient digestive systems means that you can consume more calories through your food since your “body guest” is also noshing on them for his own growth purposes. Some scientists estimate that those infected with a single tapeworm can lose up to one or two pounds each week.”

Healthy eating? Blah. Exercise? Who needs it! Just swallow a parasite and continue hitting KFC for lunch and dinner. Tyra even had a guy on that sells the worms over the Internet; despite an FDA ban on the practice. Said one woman on Twitter, “I’m still undecided on Tyra Banks’ Tapeworm diet. I don’t know if its a great or just plain ridiculous.” Undecided? What the hell is wrong with people?

dietsinreview.com - Tapeworm Diet

This dangerous parasite is banned in the U.S.

Eating cabbage soup for two weeks. Exercising three times day. Drinking water with lemon juice and cayenne pepper for 10 days. We can all admit to going to great lengths, even if just once, to lose those unwanted pounds. But the Tapeworm Diet has to get as extreme and desperate as the world of dieting tricks and methods come. The good news is that importing or selling tapeworms in the U.S. is illegal. Tapeworms though, do occur in undercooked beef or raw meat dishes which are prone to contamination.

So what does a tapeworm in your gut actually do? It secretes proteins in our intestinal tract that make our digestion of food much less efficient. A less efficient digestive systems means that you can consume more calories through your food since your "body guest" is also noshing on them for his own growth purposes. Some scientists estimate that those infected with a single tapeworm can lose up to one or two pounds each week. Certain tapeworms can be downright lethal like a pork tapeworm, but for beef tapeworms, you can clear up an infection by taking a dose of antibiotics.

Some diet gimmicks have created tapeworm pills but since then the FDA has intervened and banned these unsubstantiated and dangerous products.