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Our body is an incredible machine, but it's also a bit of a mystery. Despite spending our entire lives in this amazing, complex vessel, we often know surprisingly little about it. However, while it might be thrilling to discover fun facts about the human body, there are also some unsettling truths you might prefer to ignore.
When u/Beneficial_Cry2061 asked on Reddit, "What is a disturbing medical fact that not many people know?" the responses started pouring in. People shared some truly unsettling facts that might just make you squirm. Dive in and discover these strange realities of the bodies we live in.
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#1
The truth about HeLa cells. These cells grow and divide constantly and are used in all sorts of medical research to discover cures for cancer and other diseases. They were originally harvested from a woman named Henrietta Lacks who had cervical cancer that was fatal. She died in 1951. Her family didn’t know that her cells were even being used until recently. These cells were basically stolen from Henrietta by a doctor and he made millions from them, and Henrietta’s family never knew. Once they found out, they finally settled with a biotech company for an undisclosed amount. This woman has basically saved so many of us, and we all owe her so much.
Laura Lawson 3 months ago
What made the cells from Henrietta Lacks so scientifically significant is that they keep growing & dividing indefinitely. In 1952, this was a first, no other cells they harvested from other women did this. They are truly a scientific wonder & have been used in developing treatments for polio, cancers, HIV/AIDS & even the Covid vaccine. This woman needs to be celebrated & taught in every science class. To demean her down to just HeLa cells is a travesty that all of humanity needs to change. Many of us simply wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her cells.
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#2
The first doctor to suggest hand washing before surgery was laughed at repeatedly by his colleagues.
#3
A scary number of people wind up with vertebral artery dissections and strokes from chiropractic cervical manipulations. How do I know? I've seen several perfectly healthy women in the prime of their lives as organ harvests in my OR.
Huddo's sister 3 months ago
There is a ban on children under 2 getting spinal manipulation from a chiropractor in Australia because so many babies have died
#4
We got to modern medicine by grave robbing, crime, and accidents. it wasn't always legal to be a doctor.
Charlotte Sandoval 3 months ago
Or ethical. Or moral. It's unfortunate the amount we learned from people who abused others. Slaves, nazi victims.... but we can try to turn it for good now I suppose.
#5
A fertilised egg can fail to develop normally and grow into a malignant tumor. It's called a molar pregnancy and I'd be very interested in what the "life begins at conception" crowd has to say about it.
Pandemonium 3 months ago
That crowd should say the same thing that Jesus said on the topic of a woman's bodily autonomy and reproductive rights: Nothing.
#6
The health of your teeth, or lack thereof, can cause heart disease. The bacteria that infect the gums and cause gingivitis and periodontitis also travel to blood vessels elsewhere in the body, where they cause blood vessel inflammation and damage.
If you are diabetic, and don't know it--or do, but have problems controlling your sugars, it can severely harm your teeth. On the flip side? Having bad teeth can severely affect your blood glucose as a diabetic. It can become a s****y cycle.
And yes--mentioned earlier, but if you get an infected tooth, that infection can travel to the brain or blood very fast.
And yet, teeth are still considered "luxury bones," with maintenance, cleaning, and dental care hardly ever being covered by insurance.
#7
Chest compressions are violent. Just let your 91 year old grandma go.
#8
A study by Johns Hopkins in 2016 cited that medical errors are probably the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA, following heart disease and cancer.
Errors were: Wrong Diagnosis. Incorrect dosage or wrong meds. Surgery errors and the biggest, poor communication between staff.
It is also thought that this study is also correct in the UK and EU.
LeMurierBonjour 3 months ago
Wrong diagnosis and poor communication is really unacceptable in this age of scientific and communication advancement. The problem lies with the systems and processes in place that have to be navigated to get a patient in front of the right specialist. The NHS in the UK is terrible for this. And I have no idea what the point of a GP (general practitioner) is anymore.
#9
Not necessarily a medical fact, but a reality check: Doctors don't have everything figured out, they are just human like the rest of us. Just like how us software developers search Google to troubleshoot something when we are stuck, they do too. Shows like Dr. House portray doctors as this infallible walking medical encyclopedia. It's all fiction. So, always be open to getting a second opinion if something isn't working.
Back in St. Olaf 3 months ago (edited)
Doctors don't diagnose. They eliminate possibilities. Sometimes. Truth is that medical science is not advanced as we'd like to think. My liver started bleeding spontaneously last year. Put me in the hospital for weeks. Nobody seems to know why this happened, what caused it, or whether it will happen again. The surgeon literally shrugged and told me, "eh, it's weird. We'll probably never figure it out. Best of luck to you!" It was very similar to that awful day as a child I realized adults don't know everything and, in fact, are just winging it on a daily basis.
#10
That your body fights off 10,000 events that would cause cancer daily.
#11
Cat scratch fever is real, and can be deadly. I know someone who spent 2 weeks in hospital from it and it was his cat.
Ace 3 months ago
More often cat bite than scratch, but yeah. Bites that penetrate skin stand a ~100% chance of infection if not treated immediately.
S Bow 3 months ago
Not accurate, I've been bitten and scratched countless times that drew blood and I've never developed an infection. Never treated them with anything either.
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Sue Denham 3 months ago
I had to find new homes for my cats, Merlin and Salem, after I had my spleen removed because of risk of infections from cat scratches or bites.
Jean Dogmom 3 months ago
I had it in high school. Only had a couple symptoms, feeling like c**p and a swollen lymph node in front of my ear. Just went away on its own. This was mid 1970s.
Bec 3 months ago
My husband had it as a child and almost died, depends on the strength of your immune system, it didn't help that he didn't tell anyone a strange car had scratched him because he didn't want to get in trouble
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Gracie Mae 3 months ago
I always thought it was a great song...til one of my kids actually got it! It caused lockjaw and was very painful. Felt so bad for my teen, but thankfully it was diagnosed quickly & taken care of.
Jaguarundi 3 months ago
My husband had cat scratch fever not caused by a cat. He was scratched by a piece of machinery at work which caused a sepsis infection.
keyboardtek 3 months ago
And please do not feed feral cats! Our rural county has a major wild cat problem and too many "colony feeder" residents are making it worse. These cats have rabies, they have viruses that can pass onto your dogs, they stink up property, the are the top predator of wild birds.
#12
Chainsaws were originally invented for childbirth.
Vibrators were invented because doctors were manually massaging women to hysterical paroxysm (orgasm) to cure their “hysteria” and they got too lazy to do it by hand.
FoxEcoLimaIndiaCharlieIndiAlfa 3 months ago
Is it wrong that I'm not surprised by either of these things, in the slightest?
#13
The man who developed the pap smear did so with the help of his wife, who received pap smears almost daily for 21 years.
>Volunteering as an experimental subject: For 21 years, Mary allowed her husband to sample her cervical cells and vaginal fluids almost daily, which he would then smear on glass slides and examine under a microscope.
#14
There are so many wild things living in the microbiome of a human's skin. Demodex are a great example; little mites that live near human hair follicles. They look horrific and they feed off of sebum, sweat, dead skin etc.
Many things are localized too; the things living in your eyelash follicles are not the same as the ones living on your elbows. We're a whole universe, and even our skin is colonized by bizarre little f*****s
Edit; a lovely little quote I found online, about Demodex
"When you sleep, the mites come out of your skin’s pores, mate, then go back into your skin to lay eggs."
Sexy.
#15
There is no cure for rabies unless you catch it immediately and get injections. Once symptoms show it is too late and the person will die .
#16
80% of amputations are due to diabetes.
Watch your health, people.
Justin Tyme 3 months ago (edited)
I’m a retired nurse. I saw lots of non-healing diabetic wounds. Capillaries (the smallest blood vessels - the ones that feed the body cells) are measured in micrometers AKA microns, which is one millionth of a meter. The interior diameter of capillaries averages 8 micrometers. A high glucose level causes your blood to literally become syrup, which cannot pass through capillaries. No blood flow to some cells those cells will die and become food for bacteria. All it takes is one tiny break in the skin, and the bacteria will be feasting. I had several patients who ended up losing a foot or a leg because they nicked their skin while cutting toenails.
#17
That your immune system can go rogue and just randomly start eating things you need to stay alive when there's no foreign invaders to fight against.
#18
When you die, the bacteria that used to help digest your food, now digest you….
FoxEcoLimaIndiaCharlieIndiAlfa 3 months ago
Makes sense, all these microphages/bacteria do is eat, which helps us digest the food we consume. If you die, there's no more food for them to eat up, so they move on to whatever else they can, they can't differentiate between tissues/flesh.
#19
That doctors don’t know everything and you can go years without getting a diagnosis while being in unspeakable pain. I’m going through this right now.
19 months of this. I can’t handle another few more. How can something that hurts this bad and feel like a broken rib not show up or be known after almost two years of tests? At the end of my rope here.
Jocelyn Webster 3 months ago
I see you... I hear you OP. Same except going on almost 20 years. Pain has been getting progressively worse since adolescence.
#20
At any moment anyone can just randomly drop dead from a brain aneurysm. It’s more or less common for certain people, but it can literally happen to anyone at any age at any time.
Mylah Blaschke 3 months ago
There was one girl who went to my high school and this happened 😢 She was only a freshman
#21
Cold sores can cause inflammation of your brain. It’s called herpetic encephalitis and is likely to cause permanent brain damage even with treatment. It can also be caused by shingles, so getting the shingles vaccine is more important than you think.
#22
When you have surgery and your organs have to be scooped out to access something else, they don’t put them back where they were. They just kinda put it all back in and our organs just shift back to where they were. I learned this fact when I went to stand up after having a csection.
#23
ADHD symptoms are heavily influenced by estrogen levels, and yet ADHD was not studied in girls/women until 2017.
AlienatedCheeseStick 3 months ago
I’m guessing they mean ‘how ADHD presents in female patients’?
#24
Not sure how unknown it is, but at any given time without warning your uterus can just fall out. And unless it’s fully dangling outside of you, the doctors will just tell you to try to shove it back in there.
#25
Can I give two? They’re disturbing to me.
1)The prevalence of middle ear infections in children from 0-6 y/o.
Please don’t ignore this. Have hearing tested annually, the impact on schooling, speech, milestones etc. is not to be taken lightly.
2) Untreated hearing losses, under stimulated brain possibly leading to accelerated risks of early onset memory loss, dementia etc. The worse the hearing the higher the risk. Just get your hearing tested annually, you’re never to young for a hearing loss man.
Ovata Acronicta 3 months ago
I had tons of ear infections as a kid. Medication wrecked my 6 year molars, have had 3/4 of them drilled. I am also uncertain if my right ear canal is messed up as a result of the infections or if it being oddly shaped made them more likely - it's very narrow and sensitive: stimulating a nerve at the base of my neck itches all the way up in my ear, and it itches horrendously in my ear if I have tonsil stones on that side.
#26
Oxygen poisoning is a thing. Too much O2 in your body can kill you.
But don't worry, you won't die from breathing too hard. It's mostly an issue for divers and other people who breathe pressurized breathing gases.
Max Fox 3 months ago
Breathing faster doesn't increase the oxygen levels in the lungs by much - it's 16% oxygen on exhale, and 21% in the atmosphere. However, breathing fast can lower the CO2 levels in the lungs by a higher percent and that can mess up breathing, which is why happens with hyperventilating. So you either up the CO2 in your lungs by doing something like breathing into a paper bag, or you faint, and your breathing goes back to normal.
#27
Not a human example (probably), but sometimes cows, goats and other animals get pregnant but instead of giving birth to a normal lamb/kid/calf it gives birth to an *"amorphous globosus"*, a spherical mass of flesh with an outer layer of skin with hair or fur, and the inside a jumbled mess of guts and tissues and sometimes teeth. They never have brains or spinal cords though, so they're always stillborn and nonviable.
#28
Everyone who's had to deal with a brand new baby's had to deal with it, but a baby's first poop (meconium) is very thick and sticky and hard to wipe off. What most people don't know is what it's made of.
Around halfway through a pregnancy, a fetus develops hair called lanugo all over their body. They shed most to all of it before they're full term. That hair is shed directly into the amniotic fluid, which is then ingested by the fetus, and (hopefully) stays in their intestines until birth or right after.
So, basically, fetuses eat their own hair, and since amniotic fluid is swallowed and excreted, you could say they're swimming in their own pee.
Also, chainsaws were invented for childbirth.
Sue Denham 3 months ago
I'm okay with the first three paragraphs. The last one: No, no, no, no, NO! Was it ever used for that purpose? If so - how?
#29
Some hospitals allow medical students to practice on patients who are under anesthesia. Without the patient's knowledge/active consent.
It is completely f****d up. They hide technical consent in overly broad terminology in the papers you sign when you go in for an operation.
They argue that they do it this way because it is hard to get volunteers for students to practice very invasive internal exams.
#30
Sepsis is a horrible way to die . Seen it never wanna see it again . Poor bastard had horrible death and nothing could be done about it.
Terri Robinson 3 months ago (edited)
My mom died from sepsis from a bedsore on her tailbone/butt area. I had to 'call it' when she coded...it was not easy, but the right thing to do. Her body was literally failing itself.
#31
The eyelash mite lives mainly on the human eyelash and is an 8 legged parasite that eats skin and oil. They stay hidden in the hair follicles during the day and emerge at night to eat, lay eggs and excrete waste. And that is why you should wash your face in the morning.
#32
Prions.
Edit- prions are misfolded proteins that cause other proteins to misfold in your body and it causes cell death. They affect the brain and aren't curable. They are also extremely hard to destroy. A few prion diseases are:
Mad Cow Disease
Kuru
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease
Fatal Familial Insomnia (nightmare fuel)
Chronic Wasting Disease.
#33
Your tonsils can turn against you and hurt your immune system. I had mine taken out at age 21 after an abscess nearly killed me.
Child of the Stars 3 months ago
In 2nd grade, my sister had strep throat several times, and the doctor recommended getting her tonsils removed. Until, while being seen for an entirely unrelated matter, my brother was being seen and the doctor noticed HIS tonsils were swollen and red. Turned out he was carrying the bacteria but was completely asymptomatic; a heavy dose of antibiotics for him, and voila, my sister stopped getting strep!
#34
When you get a kidney transplant, unless your original kidneys are diseased, they just lEAVE THE OLD ONES IN THERE. OLD DEAD KIDNEYS JUST CHILLING
also- fallopian tubes are not connected to ovaries. they just float in the general direction of the ovaries and do their best to vacuum up eggs as they get popped out (kind of like a pimple bursting) out of ovary pores? so the eggs just get popped wherever and you gotta cross your toes and hope your weird little vacuum tubes are aiming right that day???
Ovata Acronicta 3 months ago
Can't vacuum eggs if you don't have weird little vacuum tubes. Cross your fingers for me that I can get this done, plz thx.
#35
There's a certain part during the cremation process where the meat is perfectly cooked.
#36
Poop can come out of both ends.
Justin Tyme 3 months ago (edited)
True. If you continue an episode of vomiting until it comes out tasting like cråp, that's because it is.
#37
If your immune system figures out you have eyes you will go blind.
#38
Humans have both light meat and dark meat due to type 1A and type 2B muscle fibers. However, humans are lean and not very calorie dense, so if you're already starving cannibalism doesn't do much good.
Justin Tyme 3 months ago
Humans are lean? Maybe in some localized culture somewhere in the world, but that is certainly not what I have seen.
#39
In canada and the states, doctors and residents are allowed to perform gynaecological exams on women under general anaesthetic, in order to provide students and residents with experience performing pelvic exams. this is typically not disclosed to the patient, and is justified as being part of receiving treatment at a teaching hospital.
Tyranamar Seuss 3 months ago
I don't know where this was happening. When I was in med school we had paid "models" who would take us on a tour of their cervix. "No, it's a little to the right. That's it. You should see it now." It was weird as heck. But everyone was consenting and no one was violated.
#40
Lots of things we know about resuscitation, trauma surgery, emergency medicine etc, were learned through gruesome vivisective experiments on WWII prisoners of war. Basically, every life saved now was paid for by a PoW tortured to death in a camp.
Max Fox 3 months ago
I hate these claims just thrown out there. Which POWs? By who? Where? While there were medical experiments performed on humans, it was mostly by Nazis on Civilians in concentration camps. As for trauma and emergency medicine, medical personnel were experimenting on their own wounded every day, and in every war. When doctors are getting dozens to hundreds of trauma patients every day, they are trying out all sorts of new things, because the old things don't work.
#41
In the 70’s they thought babies didn’t feel pain so they preformed surgery without anasteisa.
Laura Lawson 3 months ago
This isn't exactly true. They didn't perform surgery on an awake screaming baby. It would still be anaesthetised, but it was more for the doctors ease than the baby's. Plus they knew that babies felt pain, any parent knew that! It was that they thought the baby wouldn't remember the pain therefore it didn't matter if they used pain relief or not. It still sucks & is a hideous thought but fortunately, beliefs change.
#42
I just learned about SJS, where you get an adverse reaction to a medication by your skin falling off. It happens at seemingly random too, but some medications are more prone to cause it. Fun stuff.
#43
If you sever your spinal cord you can get a condition called priapism (erection that doesn't go down). Treatment is draining the blood via syringe from the erect penis (or rarely, leeches).
Huddo's sister 3 months ago
Men joke about how great it would be, but those who do experience can tell you that it is nowhere near as good as it sounds. The blood won't drain and the pressure of it causes pain. I highly doubt you could actually cum while it is going on either. It can cause permanent damage too.
#44
I think you can get a tooth infection and it spreads to your brain n you go bye bye.
#45
That the father of gynecology was a sadistic f**k that did horrific things to enslaved women.
#46
All smells are particulates. When you have the displeasure of walking into a recently used bathroom and smell the smells the last person left, you can rest easy knowing that their are tiny microscopic particules of their stools now firmly implanted in your nose. And in your mouth if it was open. You're welcome.
Bob Brooce 3 months ago
Yeah, but if you can smell somebody else's delicious chocolate fudge cake it means they're sharing some of it with you.
#47
If the anesthesiologist f****d up you wouldn't know
edit:
since everyone is sharing their story i'll share mines. i was diagnosed with bladder cancer early 2022 with signs i ignored late 2021. between april 2022 - june 2023 i went through 5 surgeries to remove the tumors in my bladder. they kept coming back.
mentally preparing myself for the first trans-urethral resection, pre-op nurse just straight up told me if the anesthesiologist f****d up i wouldn't know..or wouldn't feel anything if s**t hits the fan. what a f****n pep talk huh? hahah.
christmas 2023 i was finally clear. i still go to chemo (doublet therapy?) and see a catheter :( for gemcitabine/docetaxel.
Bob Brooce 3 months ago
It depends on how they f**k up. If you wake up, or even become semi-conscious, during some procedures you will very definitely know. Of course if you never wake up you won't know or care.
#48
The beginning of birth control was originally an experiment and was wildly irregulated.
#49
The ovaries and fallopian tubes are not connected, so when an egg is released the fallopian tube sucks it up like a straw. Ladies, this also means that any seamen that makes it to the fallopian tubes have an open door into your abdominal cavity.
#50
The placenta that is found in humans and other live-birth mammals came about from a distant common ancestor being infected with a virus some 150-200 million years ago, and evolution doing its thing. If this infection didn't happen, we'd still be laying eggs.
What do you think ?
Tyelel 3 months ago
Editor, please take this off the site. It's irresponsible journalism, and potentially more harmful than entertaining. Several items are seriously misleading or blatantly incorrect, and many are personal anecdotes with unsupported conclusions.
Ace 3 months ago
Seeing these develop over the last few years it's clear that one person after another has passed on a tiny bit of medical "fact", which gets embroidered each time in the retelling. It's like Chinese Whispers. I don't believe for a second that a single one of the posts here is from someone who actually knows this stuff, just that they've seen in on the internet and regurgitated it as their own.
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Grumpyness24 3 months ago
Yeah right. Half of these posts were written without a second of research or verification. and were just picked up from reddit. Can we just stick to animal posts and memes ?
Bored Dino 3 months ago
As someone who researches this for fun, they leave out important parts, like context or the time
Crescent 3 3 months ago
The doctor who pioneered the pre-frontal lobotomy, Dr. Antonio Egaz-Moniz, was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. One of his students, Dr. Walter Freeman, took it further by developing the Trans-orbital lobotomy, in which an ice-pick-type device is inserted through the top of the eye socket and forced into the brain by using a small hammer to break through the skull.
Tyelel 3 months ago
Editor, please take this off the site. It's irresponsible journalism, and potentially more harmful than entertaining. Several items are seriously misleading or blatantly incorrect, and many are personal anecdotes with unsupported conclusions.
Ace 3 months ago
Seeing these develop over the last few years it's clear that one person after another has passed on a tiny bit of medical "fact", which gets embroidered each time in the retelling. It's like Chinese Whispers. I don't believe for a second that a single one of the posts here is from someone who actually knows this stuff, just that they've seen in on the internet and regurgitated it as their own.
Load More Replies... Grumpyness24 3 months ago
Yeah right. Half of these posts were written without a second of research or verification. and were just picked up from reddit. Can we just stick to animal posts and memes ?
Bored Dino 3 months ago
As someone who researches this for fun, they leave out important parts, like context or the time
Crescent 3 3 months ago
The doctor who pioneered the pre-frontal lobotomy, Dr. Antonio Egaz-Moniz, was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. One of his students, Dr. Walter Freeman, took it further by developing the Trans-orbital lobotomy, in which an ice-pick-type device is inserted through the top of the eye socket and forced into the brain by using a small hammer to break through the skull.
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