Repairing the Nutritional Damage Left by Pinworm Infection

Now that you've managed to get rid of pinworms, what do you need to repair the nutritional deficiencies left in their wake?

In children, the most common nutritional deficit after pinworm infection is iron. The constant irritation of the lining of the colon and the rectum causes just enough blood loss to keep iron stores from building up.

How can you recognize iron deficiency in children? Babies who are deficient in iron tend to lag in development, and toddlers and young children who are deficient in iron tend to develop ADD and ADHD. Physical symptoms of iron deficiency include swollen tongue, irritability, easy fatigue or lack of interest in play, brittle fingernails, and sores at the corners of the mouth.

That doesn't mean, however, it's a good idea automatically to give kids iron supplements. Before giving supplements, you probably need a blood test to make sure there's really still an iron deficiency. That will cost about $40 in the US, as an add-on to a doctor's visit, if you don't have insurance.

Any nutritional supplement containing iron should be kept out of reach of children, especially if it's in a fruit flavor or a cartoon shape. Too much iron is toxic.

The first thing to do is to get rid of any intestinal parasites, and then to increase iron in the diet. Foods cooked in cast-iron pots and pans are rich in iron, as are spinach, raisins, and molasses. The best cereals for providing iron are those with the finest texture (providing more places the digestive tract can "grab" iron from food before it's expelled in stool).

And a small serving of orange juice, or any other vitamin C food, can double the amount of iron absorbed from food. On the other hand, tea can cut the amount of iron absorbed from food in half.

The best source of dietary iron, of course, is the heme- iron found in meats. The body can absorb heme- iron, which is particularly abundant in liver, almost as easily as it can absorb the iron in an iron tablet.

What other nutrients do kids need after pinworm infection? There's no specific clinical research to know for sure, although there are reports from Africa that children who have had pinworm infections tend to grow more normally when they receive a peanut butter spread fortified with vitamins. A multivitamin should be more than enough to provide this requirement. The most important thing is to get rid of the worms!

What about nutritional deficiencies after pinworm infections in adults?

Adults have larger stores of iron and become iron-deficient more slowly. In adults, the deficient nutrient tends to be lysine, the amino acid found in abundance in most vegetables, chicken, fish, and turkey.

The absolutely most lysine-rich food is dried cod, followed by soy protein, dried tofu, baker's yeast, parsley, and spirulina. A wide variety of meats, fish, eggs and egg substitutes, and vegetables, however, are almost as good. But if you choose to supplement, it's a 1,000 mg tablet 3 times a day.