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“Your Kidneys Are Selfish”: 53 Facts About The Human Body
Your body is with you 24/7. But how often do you actually stop to think about what it’s doing? Probably not much, and honestly, that’s for the best. Because the more you dig into how it really works, the weirder things get.
One Redditor asked users to share the scariest facts they’ve discovered about the human body, and people delivered with some genuinely unsettling answers. If you’re curious, scroll down to see what they shared. There’s a good chance you’ll learn something new—you just might wish you hadn’t.
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#1
A woman could be suffering from symptoms of a heart attack and pass it off as some acid reflux.
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#2
Pregnancy related things get terrifying and dangerous quickly. Life might be precious, but nobody told nature. At least 25% of pregnancies end naturally in miscarriage without anyone doing anything wrong.
Anyone who tries to penalize or punish someone for miscarriage should be ashamed. It's already often painful and creates enough emotional upheaval, and sometimes trauma. The state has NO business getting involved in anything related to pregnancy.
Birth scars the bones and can cause tears. It's commonly traumatic, but nobody's supposed to talk about that side. I won't go into the insane costs from prenatal care through postnatal care. That shouldn't be forced on anyone against their will. There's a reason forced birth is a war crime.
#3
'Locked-in' syndrome is actually a real thing. The affected person is fully aware and unable to move any part of their body except their eyes.
They could also get 'Total Locked-in syndrome', which paralyzes the eyes too.
#4
A child's jaw is literally 'filled' with teeth: both baby and permanent teeth are there at the same time, hidden under the gums. If you imagine this visually, it looks quite creepy.
#5
Sudden aneurysms are pretty scary.
PapaTua:
My sister passed away this way right in front of me.
She had a mild headache all day, then a sharper pain for about 30 seconds, and then gone.
I'll be the same age she was when she passed in a year or two. I hope to go the same way at the same age.
#6
That your own immune system can destroy your body.
uhMothaWasAHamsta:
My immune system went after my kidneys. Now I’m on dialysis and hoping to get on the transplant list. They put me on chemo to destroy my immune system just to make it stop so now it takes me forever to heal, if I ever do.
#7
Flesh eating bacteria can quickly lead to amputation and demise. According to the person from whom I learned this terrible ailment from, it's all but incurable, which reminds me... rabies.
#9
That disease where any injured tissue heals as bone. Absolutely fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
Also, Harlequin Ichthyosis.
#10
Psychosis/mania- had it year ago and it still haunts me, the thoughts&thinking is 100% faster, you cant decide what you want to do, you have so much energy, alter-images (you think you re all powerdul being etc) you feel like you re top of the world, you cant fall asleep and you feel like you dont need to sleep, and it lasted up to 4 days for me, it was horrible thing to go through.
#11
That, as amazing as the human brain is, it's seriously flawed and basically constantly hallucinating and making up data based on your past experience. You literally can't trust it to tell you the truth.
kupuwhakawhiti:
This take bothers me. A lot of what we consider bugs in the brain are actually features.
For example, a woman once lost the ability to forget. Sounds like a superpower. But decades after the passing of her husband she was unable to stop mourning him because her memory of the event was as strong after 20 years as the day it happened.
#12
Your nerves are as thin as strings. First time I opened up a body and studied all the anatomy, it was shocking how nerves and blood vessels were incredibly thin. Like we get hit by balls or fall on rocks or do martial arts and dont think much of it but the wiring of your entire body is so thin it's sobering to realize how fragile we really are.
#14
That you can lose all your teeth during pregnancy because if you're not taking enough calcium rich foods, your foetus can take all the calcium from your teeth.
I actually saw a case like that on the internet.
#16
You can feel pain in a limb that isn’t even there anymore.
Phantom limb pain proves your brain can generate very real suffering without the body part existing.
#17
Intestines will move back into place on their own if they ever get misplaced, rearranged or out of order. I think anyone who’s had a c-section may have experienced this but it’s wild.
#18
Creating life and birthing. That it can be life-threatening, even if you do everything right in your power.
#19
The most frightening fact about the human body:
Your brain does not distinguish well between real danger and repeated thoughts.
You stress about something imaginary → cortisol rises → the immune system drops.
In other words, you can get sick from a story that only exists in your head.
The mind is not “just mental.” It is real-time biochemistry.
#20
That you can have multiple symptoms and not one doctor can tell you what’s wrong!!! I am living proof.
#21
Fallopian tubes aren’t attached to your ovaries, they just kind of wave around in your abdomen trying to grab the eggs when they fall out. It makes me picture my womb as salad fingers.
#26
Fatal familial insomnia. Its a prion disease where your brain slowly loses the ability to sleep. Not like regular insomnia where you're tired but eventually crash - your brain literally forgets how to fall asleep. Average survival after symptoms start is like 12-18 months, and the whole time youre completely aware of what's happening to you. No cure, no treatment, nothing. Your brain just deteriorates while you're awake watching it happen.
#27
Every single day mistakes happen in the creation of new cells and every single day there are hundreds and hundreds of cell mistakes made that could lead to a cancer. Luckily most of them will be eliminated before they do any damage, but the chance of some of them slipping through is never zero. Heck, there is a chance that right now that cancer is already growing.
#28
Your brain can quietly rewire itself to normalize almost anything, chronic pain, bad sleep, even anxiety, if it lasts long enough, your body starts treating it as the new normal which is why problems can creep in so slowly you barely notice until you are deep in it.
#29
Vitamin C is essential for the production of collagen. Scar tissue is constantly reworking itself and if you don’t have an incoming supply of collagen for them to do that, they just… open up. So if you get scurvy, all your old scars could just melt open on ya. Eat your citrus, kids!
#30
You can feel completely fine while something life-threatening is already happening inside you.
#31
Your kidneys are selfish, temperamental, and melodramatic. They'll end you if they want.
Heart is weak? Welp, the kidneys need blood, so they'll retain fluid to overwork your already weak heart just to get that sweet sweet blood.
#32
That some people are allergic to the sun, other humans and somehow water.
littleblissmiss:
I'm allergic to my own sweat.
#33
The spinal cord itself looks and feels like crab meat when it’s pulled out of the vertebrae.
#34
As far as understand of human anatomy and medicine has advanced over the last century, there is still so much we don't know. We don't know why the body does certain things, such as yawning. We don't understand the mechanisms behind why certain medicines/treatments work. We don't even know if we know all of the anatomy in a human body - entirely new organs are discovered on a surprisingly frequent basis.
Complicating things is that human anatomy is a spectrum. We think of it as a set thing, but there are so many possible variations.
#35
Postpartum cardiomyopathy—suddenly develop heart failure after pregnancy with no risk factors.
#36
Not really a fact, but I watch My 600-lb Life and it's scary how much the human body can handle.
Some guy on that show is 900 lbs. Some girl in this show is 800lbs and she's running around and walking.
#38
Your eating tube and breathing tube are literally separated by a tiny flap of skin.
Either God or evolution is a terrible designer.
#39
Thinking about how quickly viruses can mutate and spread makes you see everyday germs a bit differently.
#40
I find it kinda freaky that the heart never stops pumping. Like from the moment were born to the very end, it's just a constant movement.
#43
No matter how healthy you are through proper nutrition, good sleep and exercise you could still drop from a number of things you can't really do anything about. Aneurysm, heart attack, a blood clot or stroke can just happen due to bad genetics, too much stress or even just one really bad cough or sneeze.
I'm not afraid of most things people are commonly afraid of. However I'm terrified of my body just one day saying F you. That, sky diving and being in unclear water are some of the only things I have a legit fear of.
#44
How quickly the body perishes in an emergency. For example, if your survival depends on a defibrillator, every second *literally* counts. After 3 minutes, your chances of survival are pretty grim.
#48
It's rare but the fact that sometimes plants can grow inside of you. Apparently some plants aren't picky because sometimes the inside of the human body isn't too different from dirt for them. I once heard about a plant that grew out of a man's heart of brain or something. That freaked me out so bad that it was constantly on my mind during fall of 2020.
#49
Not a specific fact, per se, but just the almost infinite ways the body can break down or fail. The space of possible problems is vast, and even the amount of rare disorders is huge. Every so often, I'll stumble across a new horrific condition I've never heard of, or I'll hear of a friend or family member's medical woes, and I'm reminded of how frail we are.
It really makes me appreciate how miraculous and complicated a functioning human body is at the end of the day. I'm grateful to only have run of the mill issues, like migraines and depression. The menu of worse conditions is unfathomable.
#52
It's more disturbing than scary, but the fact that we are supposed to feel our organs moving, but the brain just ignores it.
#53
I learned from my anatomy class that tumours try to keep arteries close to them so they can have oxygen rich blood so they can grow bigger. I think that was the scariest thing I’ve learned because I now don’t believe that cancer is treatable. Because it tries to keep oxygen for itself so I can grow bigger.
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