# tape worms **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 22, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tape-worms/613626 "2012-02-22T12:48:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![copperwindow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@copperwindow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/copperwindow)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tape-worms/613626/1 "2012-02-22T12:48:57Z")
why is it that when you eat something with a tapeworm , the tape worm doesn’t die? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tape-worms/613626/2 "2012-02-22T13:23:29Z")
They have a skin/cuticle that’s resistant to being digested by the host - in fact, it’s not all that much of a stretch to think of a tapeworm’s outside as being like your own insides - they have no mouths or digestive systems - they absorb nutrients through their skin. So tapeworms don’t get digested for the same sort of reason that you don’t digest your own initestines from the inside out. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tape-worms/613626/3 "2012-02-22T19:39:33Z")
Keep in mind that you don’t actually swallow a long, living worm-like object. You swallow a sort of egg-like object - cyst, perhaps? I forget what the technical term is. It doesn’t hatch and start growing in your system until the intestine. ---
**Author:** ![conway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ec9cab/32.png) [@conway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conway)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tape-worms/613626/4 "2012-02-22T20:31:25Z")
[Cecil talks tapeworms.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2805/tale-of-the-tape-can-tapeworms-help-you-lose-weight)