Interact With What’s Eating You

With relatives more numerous than Goner virus e-mails hitting us up for the holidays, our thoughts at this time of year naturally turn to parasites.

But not the loser cousin variety. The bugs we’ll explore this week feed off you, not your bank account.

First off, there’s a difference between the good bugs and the bad bugs in your body. And there are a lot of both. People have nearly four pounds’ worth of intestinal flora, according to Family Health News (www.familyhealthnews .com/art_probiotic_bacteria.htm). Isn’t that like a quarter of Calista Flockhart’s total weight?

Intestinal flora are important to your health (lactobacilli, for example, produce vitamin K.) But like human villains, the bad bugs are more interesting.

A world-of-parasites tour should start at the World of Parasites (martin.parasitology.mcgill .ca/jimspage/worldof.htm), which has an interactive map so you can tell which parasites live where. The list of parasites also is interactive, in case you’re interested in reading about open sores.

Basic information can be had at WormLearn (home.austarnet.com .au/wormman/wormmain.htm).

Did you know, for example, “the word parasite can be liberally translated from the Greek to mean ‘eating at the same table’?” Yeah, we know the feeling.

A promo site (www.bigwave tv.com/BodySnatchers/index.htm) for a film for National Geographic called “Body Snatchers” doesn’t have a lot of info but does have some great images. Check out the close-up of the head louse and then head for the shower.

More appetizing images can be found courtesy of Ohio State University (www.biosci.ohio-state .edu/~parasite/a-z.html). In addition, a section called This Wormy World (www.biosci.ohio-state.edu /~parasite/wormy_world.html) has estimates of the number of parasite infections in humans. Almost 1.3 billion people have hookworms, making about a fifth of the world pretty wormy indeed.

That many infections are sure to attract the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s parasite information can be found at www.dpd.cdc.gov/DPDx/HTML/Para _Health.htm. The diagrams of how bugs get into people would make great holiday cards.

The government also collects parasites, even those that aren’t elected. The U.S. National Parasite Collection is at www.anri .barc.usda.gov/BNPCU. Well, not literally, but you can read about it.

It would be remiss of us to leave out leeches. Though there are lots of places that sell the little bloodsuckers for medicinal reasons or as bait, the Roadside America site (www.roadsideamerica.com /attract/ILSPRleech.html) has the Leech Lady. If you love leeches as much as she does, learn more about collecting and raising them at Lovable Leeches (www.access excellence.org/LC/SS/leechlove .html). If you don’t, find out how to kill them at www.uky.edu /Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts /misc/ef013.htm.

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Robert Burns is graphics editor for The Times’ Business section. He can be reached at robert.burns@latimes.com.