If tapeworms live inside a persons intestines, how come they don get digested as food?
Tapeworms occur in humans in one of two forms. If ingested as eggs, they may develop into larvae that migrate out of the intestines and form cysts in other tissues such as the lungs or liver. These cysts can cause serious problems. Or, if ingested as larvae, they typically develop into adult tapeworms in the intestines, which usually cause few or no symptoms. A tapeworm infection that’s confined to your intestines is easily treated with oral medications, and the prognosis for eradication is good. However, when the disease has migrated to other parts of your body, treatment is more difficult and untreated cases can be life-threatening. Adult tapeworms are so well adapted to their hosts that they cause minimal symptoms. Larvae, however, may elicit intense immunologic reactions as they travel through tissues (hence inducing immunity) and cause severe disease when they settle in extraintestinal sites.
