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For most Chinese who are accustomed to cooked food, the first raw food experience must start with a sashimi.
Sashimi, or さしみ in Japanese, refers to the dish of fresh fish and shellfish cut into slices and eaten directly with seasonings, and has become a popular dish around the world.
But the results of a recent study may be a blow to many foodies.
On March 19, a team of researchers from the University of Washington published an article in Global Change Biology titled "It's a wormy world: Meta‐analysis reveals several decades of change in the global abundance of the parasitic nematodes Anisakis." spp. and Pseudoterranova spp. The in marine fishes and invertebrates paper shows that the number of worms parasitizing marine organisms such as fish shells has increased 283-fold worldwide over the past 40 years.
Known as anisakis or herring worm, this worm is a class of adult worms that parasitize the digestive tracts of marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, and seals, and the larvae parasitize nematodes of marine fish and are distributed worldwide. Infection of the human body can cause visceral larval migration, causing xenocephalus nematode disease.
Xenodermasis is an important foodborne zoonotic parasitic disease. Humans are infected by eating live larvae of xenocephalus in the bodies of uncooked marine fish. According to the literature, nearly 30 countries around the world have reported human cases of isosuriasis, with a total of more than 31,000 cases and an upward trend. Among them, Japan has the largest number of cases, with more than 2,000 new cases per year, and by 1996, it had reached more than 30,000 cases.
There is currently no specific treatment for isotid nematode disease of the gastrointestinal tract, which can be examined by fiber gastroscopy and removed, and can be treated surgically if necessary.
Because humans have chefs pick out worms that parasitize in fish and shellfish before eating sashimi, the potential harm caused by this parasite to the human body may be far less than that of marine life. The paper then focuses on the impact of the surge in the number of xenocytic nematodes on marine life.
For the first time, the Washington team has integrated the findings by collating thousands of papers on the study of isotiasis in the past to study how the global population of issonic nematodes has changed over time.
For comparison, the researchers also collected another parasitic worm called Pseudoterranova, and through analysis they found that between 1978 and 2015, the number of isotidans increased by a factor of 283, while the number of Hypodoterranova remained unchanged.
The researchers say this poses extremely high health risks to marine life, especially mammals.
After the worms hatch in the ocean, they first infect small crustaceans, such as shrimp that inhabit the seafloor. When small fish eat infected crustaceans, the worms are transferred to their bodies, which in turn move to more advanced animals along the food chain.
These worms can multiply in the intestines of marine mammals such as dolphins, whales and seals, and may survive in these species for years, so the damage they will cause is evident.
The reason for the surge in is not well understood, but researchers speculate that it may be related to the increase in marine mammal populations over the same period. Because marine mammals have been highly protected since the enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, the number has increased significantly, and this timeline coincides with the timeline of the growth of Xenocephalus.
In addition, the introduction of nutrients such as climate change and fertilizers into the sea may also be potential causes.
It is worth noting that the intermediate host of the issopsis is mostly marine fish, order fish, if humans eat isxia because of raw sea fish and eat isus nematodes, mainly in the stomach, and the stomach acid in our body can not kill them, so it will be infected. After infection, mild cases may have only gastrointestinal discomfort, and severe cases may present with sudden onset of severe pain in the upper abdomen several hours after eating, accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and even intestinal obstruction perforation and peritonitis.
Moreover, not only marine fish, but also many marine products and freshwater fish and shrimp may contain various parasites, and regular raw or semi-raw seafood and river fresh (sashimi, drunken crabs, drunken shrimp, pickled snails, etc.) will increase the risk of infection.
The article is compiled from: Prospective Network, Wenzhou City Affairs
Editor: Xu Zhang
China Food Safety Network news clues E-mail:[email protected]
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