Ticks are on the Move, Here’s How to Protect Yourself
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Hey there, welcome to Paging Dr. Gupta. This is my favorite time of the week. I get to answer your health questions and hear from you. And a lot of you have been calling in about a very specific topic, the outbreak of cyclosporiasis. That's the foodborne illness that causes severe diarrhea. Now, if you listened to Friday's episode, you know the culprit here is cyclosporae. That's a parasite transmitted by consuming contaminated foods, mostly fresh produce or contaminated water. Now, what wasn't a big part of Friday's conversation is climate change, which some studies have now linked to a rise in gastrointestinal illnesses like this one. Why is that? Well, the cyclospora parasite thrives in hot, wet places.
Why are tick bites and tick-borne illnesses increasing now?
And those types of places are becoming more widespread as our planet warms. In fact, there's a lot of disease-carrying pathogens that simply prefer those conditions. Bacteria, houseflies, ticks. And that brings us to our question for today. It comes from my colleague Ari Shapiro, who is co-host of the podcast Engagement Party, along with Audie Cornish.
Hey Sanjay, obviously summertime, we're all supposed to be careful of ticks when we go outside, but I feel like there are more tick-borne diseases, obviously Lyme disease, but then I'm hearing about this tick-borne disease that turns people vegan. Can you tell me what's going on there? Is it just more media coverage? Are there actually more ticks, more tick-borne diseases? Help me out. I'm spending time outside this summer and I don't want to freak out about it. Thanks.
Okay, thanks for the question, Ari. Unfortunately, it's true. There is a thing called the tick bite tracker from the CDC. And if you go there, you'll find that visits to the emergency room for tick bites are higher than usual across the entire country. And to complicate matters, city dwellers now have to be vigilant, too. We typically think of ticks in wooded areas, but experts say cases of tick-borne disease have been ticking up in places like New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C. And then there's the dreaded Lone Star tick, which can cause devastating and life-altering allergic reactions to red meat and dairy. We're going to take you to a community that's been hit especially hard and tell you how to stay safe from those little bloodsuckers, no matter where you live.
Stay tuned. Welcome back to Paging Dr. Gupta. So deer ticks or blackleg ticks, those are the primary ticks that carry Lyme disease. Okay, remember that. They're most active in the nymph stage when they're about the size of a poppy seed. That's really tiny. They can transmit other diseases as well, like anaplasmosis and babsiosis. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, deer ticks are mostly active when temperatures are above 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and they thrive in areas with at least 85% humidity. They are often found in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest. But it sounds like the tick Ari is asking about is the lone star tick. These pests are especially aggressive about attaching themselves to humans.
The adult females have a small white dot on their backs. That's how you can often identify them. Now, the range of these ticks has been expanding quickly, and now they can also be found in the Northeast, South, and Midwest. Their bite can cause what's called alpha-gal syndrome. That makes some people severely allergic to the alpha-gal molecules, which are naturally found in red meat and dairy.
When it bites us, our immune system might decide, foreign invader don't like it, and I'm going to create an allergic response.
That's why I already described those folks as being turned vegan. We're going to talk more about that later, but first, I want to tell you a little bit about how to protect yourself from all ticks. Luckily, that part is pretty simple. Wear long sleeves and long pants before going into the wooded, grassy areas which ticks love, which could even be your backyard, by the way. Consider treating your clothes, not your skin, but your clothes, with products containing permethrin.
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