Nutritional Effects of Parasitic Infections and Disease

Abstract

Publisher Summary The statement by Chandler (1953) that “Diet exerts profound influences on the course of parasitic infections” can be amply supported by data from studies with viruses, rickettsia, spirochetes, fungi, and animal parasites. The general concept that malnutrition leads to an increase in infections and parasitic disease in a population has to be qualified by the statement that the production and severity of the specific disease is determined by the kind of nutritional deficiency that exists. Parasitologists (using biochemical techniques), biochemists, and pharmacologists are discovering extensive material for study in the field of animal parasitology and are starting to fill the great gaps in knowledge about the fundamental principles and facts that enable cells to live a parasitic existence and adapt themselves to a variety of environmental changes necessary to complete their life cycles. This chapter reviews the physiological and metabolic behavior of animal parasites as affected by nutritional factors and points out the status of knowledge about the mechanisms involved in the production of disease, with emphasis on animal parasites infecting man and the diseases they produce.