Parasites are organisms that are part of our body's natural internal microbiome. Although some parasites might be able to live inside the body without causing harmful health effects, the reality is that parasitic infections can cause severe illness.

Parasites can deplete your body of nutrients leading to chronic deficiencies. They can cause damage to cells and organs contributing to inflammation, aches, pain and decreased in function. Lastly, parasites also release toxins into the body, these toxins are harmful to cells, increase inflammation, contribute to mitochondrial disruption and tax your immune system.

When most people think about parasites they think about worms you can see with the naked eye. However, many harmful parasites are microscopic.

Some examples are:

• Giardia lamblia
• Entamoeba histolytica
• Cryptosporidium species
• Cyclospora cayetanensis
• Pinworms
• Hookworms
• Threadworms
• Whipworms
• Dwarf tapeworms
• Tapeworms
• New world hookworms

Parasitic infections can happen to the healthiest of people, if they come into contact with dirty water or food, are nail biters, kiss their pets, travel a lot or simply forget to wash their hands.

There are stool tests that can identify parasitic infections. However as far as we're aware, there is no test that looks for all the hundreds of parasites that can be found in the human gut.