Explosive diarrhea, ‘protein maxxing’ and the science of burnout

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• 00:06

  Happy Monday, listeners, and happy August.

• 00:09

  For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

• 00:13

  We're finally back with another one of our science news roundups.

• 00:22

  I'll start with a story that pretty much everyone I know has been asking me for science-backed advice on.

• 00:28

  Cyclospora, otherwise known as the exploding diarrhea parasite.

• 00:32

  If you are either living outside of the US or living under a rock,

• 00:36

  this microscopic parasite has been causing big gastrointestinal issues this summer.

• 00:42

  As of July 30th, Michigan alone had reported more than 10,000 cases of cyclosporiasis,

• 00:48

  a disease caused by the parasite that can lead to bouts of sudden watery diarrhea, including 193 hospitalizations.

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  That's compared with around 40 or 50 cases in a typical year,

• 01:02

  according to the state's chief medical executive, Natasha Bagdasarian.

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  And it's likely that many cases have actually gone unreported.

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  Another eight states have also seen an uptick in cases that the Centers for Disease Control

• 01:16

  and Prevention has tied to the same outbreak.

• 01:19

  First, the good news.

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  The cases in those nine states have been linked pretty solidly to iceberg lettuce,

• 01:27

  specifically shredded lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms de Mexico.

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  But it's too soon to tell whether or not other as-yet-unidentified

• 01:36

  and unrecalled streams of produce have also been contaminated.

• 01:40

  So just avoiding iceberg lettuce is good, but probably not sufficient.

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