The pork tapeworm is a particularly vicious parasite because it can end up in the most important organ in the human body: the brain.

Armed with jagged teeth used to hook onto its host, the hookworm can be transmitted from your household cat onto a human.

Found in contaminated food and water, Entamoeba histolytica is a parasite that feeds on living cells in the human gut.

Acanthamoeba is a voracious parasite that enters the body through the skin or the nose, then devours brain cells.

Even dead, the larvae of parasitic roundworms can cause river blindness, or Onchocerciasis. These parasites are transmitted through the saliva of blackflies.

Found inside undercooked wild game and pork, Trichanella spiralis is a parasitic worm that can cut through human muscles and tissue.

The Leishmania parsite feeds directly on the vital organs from the inside-out. It's spread through infected sand flies.

After taking a trip to a local water park, a man is fighting for his life while a parasite eats his intestines from the inside out.

While swimming with a friend a man has a seizure and collapses. Shortly after, he finds out that a pork tapeworm has been slowly eating away at his brain!

After eating some raw sushi, a woman begins a fight for her life as a mass containing parasitic worms creates a blockage in her colon. The woman has Anisakiasis, a disease caused by Anisakis worms.

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Burrowing through the skin and internal organs, gnathostoma worms can eventually cause paralysis and death.

Unclean sheets and linens carry human scabies mites, which feed on human skin, causing intense itching. The condition is called scabies, or simply "the itch."

A young woman contracts a parasite, Trichinella spiralis, after eating infected meat. The condition, called trichinosis, can cause paralysis as the worms burrow through her muscles.

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Anisakis worms, common in marine mammals, don't fair so well in the human body. The dead worms can create an inflammatory condition in the gut called Anisakiasis.