9 Human Parasites You Don't Want Along for the Ride

From Treehugger:

Credit: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

You've probably heard of the old "Six Degrees of Separation" game, which more often than not leads to Kevin Bacon (he did star in more than 60 movies). When it comes to degrees of separation, we are also intimately connected with tiny, creepy crawly creatures...many you'd rather not think about. But we live with them every day. They're parasites.

All of these pictures may make you want to take a thorough shower, or look into a colon cleansing. They also point to ills associated with environmental pollution. Take the Ascaris lumbricoides, a roundworm shown here that infects the small intestines of children and adults in Africa and the southeastern United States. This worm is associated with poor personal hygiene, poor sanitation and the use of human feces as fertilizer, according to MedlinePlus. But this is just one stomach-churning parasite that might call your body home...