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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
Can anyone answer a science/medical question for me? Okay, more than one question actually, but all related...

Which of these four things:

Bacteria
Yeast
Parasites
Virus

can develop/evolve from a single-celled organism?

What else can evolve from a single-celled organism and inhabit/affect the human body on a long term basis?

And which of those four things could affect fertility?
 

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Originally Posted by WildIris View Post
Can anyone answer a science/medical question for me? Okay, more than one question actually, but all related...

Which of these four things:

Bacteria
Yeast
Parasites
Virus

can develop/evolve from a single-celled organism? yeast, parasites like Giardia and bacteria

What else can evolve from a single-celled organism and inhabit/affect the human body on a long term basis? The above three... Viruses can also inhabit the body long term (E.B.V for example) but I don't think they are single-celled.

And which of those four things could affect fertility? all, to some degree or another
How'd I do? It's been a while since I took a board exam!
 

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My science background is rusty, but wikipedia confirmed what I thought:

Bacteria - single-celled organism, your body hosts billions of them, most benign and necessary, but some certainly may affect fertility. Some are known to cause miscarriage (eg listeria). Some will just outright kill you, and thus affect your fertility.
Virus - not even unicellular - they are submicroscopic and unable to reproduce without a host cell. Certainly viruses can affect fertility, for instance HPV can lead to cervical cancer which has an impact on fertility, and, like bacteria, can just outright kill you. Ebola, for example, has a pretty huge impact on fertility.
Parasite - multicellular organism, usually animal. Parasites are typically worms or mites that live in the host's body and use the host's body for sustenance. They are not usually directly responsible for infertility, but may contribute by robbing the host's body of nutrients required for fertility. Or they can just kill you, too.
Yeast - unicellular but can form interrelated colonies or strings. To the extent that yeast colonizes and irritates the vaginal tract, it probably does have an impact on fertility. Yeasts are in the fungus family, and there are possibly other unicellular fungi that can affect humans. Multicellular fungi are frequently tasty, and served fried with butter.


The other kind of organism? cell? thingy? that can infect humans is a prion, a malformed protein which can theoretically induce other proteins to kink up weirdly, causing neurodegeneration. This is the theoretical cause of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (mad cow) but hasn't been conclusively proven, and there is also the possibility that there is an as-yet unidentified causative agent for the prions. I dunno about the fertility impacts of prions.

Does that help? Are you concerned about beasties interfering with your fertility?
 

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Discussion Starter · #6 ·
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Originally Posted by spughy View Post
Does that help? Are you concerned about beasties interfering with your fertility?
Thank you Sarah. I appreciate your input.

I'm done having babies so I'm not concerned with my future fertility. I was asking more for theoretical reasons, because of a dream I had ten years ago that I believe was/is about my health. The gist is that I dreamed of a frightening single-celled creature that I thought of as Amoeba, that knocked over milk cups I was getting for children, then attached itself to the wall of my uterus. Then the dream showed me that the simple amoeba evolved into something else, more complex and unique.

Two months after I dreamed this, I got pregnant but had an early m/c. Then I went on to have two more children later. But I've had chronic health problems since then, which I'm just now (in the past year or so) starting to unravel.

Recently I remembered the dream and feel like it's a clue to healing for me. So I'm trying to understand what it might be.

Interesting that Chiromama mentioned EBV because some other things in the dream had me leaning in that direction. However, I think it might also be a combination of things that need to be "cleaned out" of my system.

Thanks again ladies, so much.
 

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Discussion Starter · #7 ·
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Originally Posted by firefaery View Post
from a scientific perspective what chiromamma said is true. I still haven't fixed my chat feature so I'm going to pm you my number.

Awww. I would love to call you but I don't have long distance service right now.
 
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