11 Weirdest Ways Your Body Can Malfunction

When the wheels drop off, they drop off good.

[{"title":"Double-Muscle Mutation (Superhuman Strength)","image":"0","content":" Myostatin is a chemical produced in our bodies that inhibits muscle growth and keeps us all from looking like the hulk. When something goes wrong with the production of the protein, it can cause something called the Double-Muscle Mutation. This has been identified in cows, often called super-cows, but it can also occur in humans. \/p> This means that the muscles develop at an alarming rate, providing superhuman strength and extreme definition. This can even occur in children, turning the usually squishy, skinny bodies of infants and young children into that of a body builder.\/p> Luckily, myostatin deficiency does not effect the cardiac muscle, meaning that it won't lead to the development of heart problems - the condition only affects skeletal muscle.\/p> Not only is this genetic condition interesting in and of itself, but it could also lead to some groundbreaking research into a cure for muscle wasting diseases such a muscular dystrophy. \/p> There have been some \"myostatin inhibitors\" circulating around body building communities since 2012 but, before you get your hopes up of finally getting that killer six pack, they have all since been found to be fake.\/p>","id":0},{"title":"Blue People","image":"0","content":" If someone says that you're looking a little blue, they might not be enquiring after your mental health, but after your levels of methemoglobin (as everybody does from time to time).\/p> There is a rare genetic disorder known as congenital methemoglobinemia, or met-H, that will cause sufferers' skin to turn a bright blue colour. This is due to an enzyme deficiency which causes the blood to turn a brownish colour due to a lack of oxygen which, in turn, lends the skin its icy hue in Caucasian people.\/p> A family known as the Blue Fugates or the Blue Men of Kentucky, had a high proportion of its family members with the gene that causes the blueness and this was largely due to their habit of marrying their own siblings in the 1800s. The blue gene is slowly disappearing now that the inbreeding has been knocked in its blue head.\/p> Occasionally a blue kid will crop up, to the surprise of their pink parents, and some people think that the old Fugate family gene could still be buried somewhere deep in the DNA of many Americans.\/p>","id":1},{"title":"Foreign Accent Syndrome","image":"0","content":" Just imagine that you wake up one morning, turn to your loved ones and greet them, only to have a completely different voice issue from your mouth. This could be Foreign Accent Syndrome.\/p> Some people will put on a bit of an accent to match whoever they're talking to. You might make it a bit posher when meeting the parents, or a bit more \"street\" if you're trying to be \"down with the homies\" (which, as you can probably tell, I am). \/p> Plus, there's always that one dickhead that comes back from two weeks in Australia with a broad Aussie accent, claiming that they \"can't help it\" - but the total change in accent from Foreign Accent Syndrome is completely involuntary.\/p> The condition is extremely rare and the exact cause is unknown, but it often occurs after a stroke of severe migraine. People can develop any accent including French, German, Chinese and Jamaican and sufferers generally have no knowledge of the language that their accent supposedly represents.\/p> So why the accent?\/p> Well, many experts believe that sufferers of Foreign Accent Syndrome aren't actually\/i> speaking in a different accent, but the rhythm, cadence and control of their speech has been dramatically altered by their stroke or migraine. The perception of the foreign accent is actually in the listener rather than the speaker. If we hear a way of speaking that is not like our own then our first instinct is to try and categorise it - meaning that we'll hear it as whatever accent we perceive the sounds to me most similar to.\/p>","id":2},{"title":"Gut Fermentation Syndrome","image":"1079204","content":" To begin with, you might think that Gut Fermentation Syndrome sounds like a dream come true, but it's probably a nightmare in reality. \/p> Basically, rather than digesting the sugars in the carbs you eat, GFS sufferers ferment them instead. This means that anything they eat has the potential to get you incredibly drunk.\/p> This would be easier on the wallet, as a packet of crisps is certainly cheaper than a pint but the constant drunkenness and horrible hangovers could get a bit wearing.\/p> This was the case for a 61-year-old Texas man who was forever getting drunk without actually drinking anything. Of course, no one actually believed him and just thought that he was sneaking in a snifter on the side, until he was admitted to hospital and found to have a blood alcohol level nearly five times the legal limit. Even after 24 hours of careful observation, the poor guy was still trolleyed.\/p> The syndrome is so rare that the few official medical papers that exist on the subject have to implore doctors to take it seriously. Apparently it's not exactly professional conduct to openly laugh at your patients, who knew?\/p>","id":3},{"title":"Alice in Wonderland Syndrome","image":"311238","content":" Alice in Wonderland Syndrome sounds like a seriously bad trip.\/p> Sufferers experience extreme distortions in how they perceive size, often thinking that objects are much bigger or smaller than they actually are.\/p> Imagine living in a world in which a ladybird towers over you, but you're convinced that your front door is far too small for you to fit through. People, cars, trees, buildings - anything can appear to be distorted.\/p> Sufferers tend to be very bad at perceiving distance, meaning that sometimes they will feel as though they're 40 feet tall as the ground seems very far away, then as though they are shrinking to the size of a mouse. It has also been known to cause distortions in the perception of time, causing it to tick by impossibly slowly, and has been likened to an LSD trip.\/p> The name \"Alice in Wonderland Syndrome\" is no accident as there are some who think that Lewis Carroll (the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) may have suffered with the condition himself and was inspired to write his books by his experiences.\/p>","id":4},{"title":"Jargon Aphasia","image":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY","content":" Jargon Aphasia is a condition in which the sufferer's speech is completely incomprehensible to anybody but themselves. There are lots of different types of aphasia, characterised by a difficulty with language after a brain injury.\/p> Jargon Aphasia is fairly loosely defined. Some experts think that it is when the stream of sounds appear to be fluent, but don't actually contain any words, whereas other believe that true Jargon Aphasia is made up of actual phrases and words that are jumbled together in such a way that they don't make sense.\/p> There is a theory that suggests that the most ingrained phrases, the ones we usually use almost automatically in polite conversation, are the last ones to disappear when a person has problems with their speech, therefore these are the ones that the brain offers up when that person tries to speak.\/p> Aphasia generally occurs when a person suffers some kind of brain trauma, either in the form of a stroke, severe migraine or injury that causes damage to the language centres of the brain (the Broca's area and Wernicke's area). There's no wonder drug currently available that will treat the condition and only known treatment for this condition is speech and language therapy and time.\/p>","id":5},{"title":"Something's missing...","image":"0","content":" People have always carried worms in their bodies, and one theory has it that autoimmune diseases such as Crohn\u2019s are the results of the body readying itself to fight worms that are no longer present in our species. Hookworms are being used in trials to treat a variety of immune diseases, to see if the body aims its attack on the worms instead of the organs inside the body.\/p>","id":6},{"title":"Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease","image":"0","content":" Listen to your favorite Stevie Wonder records if your ear starts ringing, or if you notice small lapses in your hearing every now and then. You may soon join the ranks of those with impaired functions. AIED is a condition in which the autoimmune system in your body starts attacking your ear\u2014and it can be difficult to treat, if it goes unnoticed for long enough. The onset of AIED is difficult to define; more often than not, the sufferer\u2019s hearing will be damaged before treatment can begin.\/p> http:\/\/american-hearing.org\/disorders\/autoimmune-inner-ear-disease-aied\/ \/p>","id":7},{"title":"Fregoli syndrome","image":"0","content":" Fregoli syndrome is the delusion that some or all of the people you meet during the course of a day are actually the same person. It's named after a famous actor who was able to change costumes rapidly onstage. As you would expect, Fregoli sufferers are frequently paranoid, as they reasonably assume that some master of disguise is fucking with them. Or maybe some kind of shape-shifting wizard.\/p> The disorder comes with different degrees of severity, though. Sometimes, sufferers don't know exactly who is stalking them, but everybody looks really familiar somehow. It's like waking up to find your town populated entirely by people who went to your high school that you never spoke to much.One guy was known to just walk up to everybody and ask where they'd met before.\/p> Fregoli syndrome also makes for an interesting insanity stew when it tag-teams with other disorders. For instance, a woman who was diagnosed with the condition also suffered from schizophrenia and something called erotomania, the belief that someone is in love with you when they aren't. She believed that actor Erik Estrada was in love with her, communicated with her telepathically and disguised himself to show up in her daily life in the form of her acquaintances and current boyfriend.\/p>","id":8},{"title":"Somatoparaphreniav","image":"0","content":" You sit down in the morning to a cup of coffee, and to work the maze on the back of the Lucky Charms box. Your nose itches, and suddenly somebody else reaches over to scratch it.\/p> Then this person grabs your coffee mug and brings it to your lips. You're starting to wonder who this is and why he's being so helpful, considering that you live alone. It's then that you realize, to your horror, that you've actually had someone else's arm grafted onto your shoulder and the goddamn thing is acting all innocent about it.\/p> The Condition:\/p> People with somatoparaphrenia suffer damage to the brain's homunculus region or \"body map.\" That's the part of your brain that catalogs all the parts of your body and keeps track of them so you know where all your limbs are without actually looking at them. If you have a stroke or something that messes with your brain, however, it can actually lose track of one of your limbs. And this really, reallymesses with your head. It makes it so that you can still move the limb and still register feeling -- you just don't recognize it as yours.\/p> In one documented case, a man denied ownership of an arm and a foot, and while he didn't know where the foot came from (it was a \"big foot only suited for work\"), he figured for some reason that the arm belonged to a woman he knew named Maria.\/p> In some cases, the experience of having someone else's body parts attached to you is so stressful that people will actually try to get the foreign limbs chopped off. In 1997, a man approached surgeon Robert Smith and asked him to amputate his left leg, which he believed wasn't his. Apparently shooting for the title of World's Most Unethical Surgeon, Smith granted the request, and was immediately swamped by people wanting him to cut off their alien limbs. He actually made a decent living cutting off people's healthy body parts until the hospital ordered him to stop, for some reason.\/p>","id":9},{"title":"Restless Genital Syndrome","image":"0","content":" Restless Genital Syndrome is a medical disorder that has mainly been reported in women, but may also affect men.\/p> Women with ReGS report weird sensations at the clitoris, vagina, labia and the region around the vagina, (such as on the pubic bone and the groins) and sometimes the anal region. These sensations have previously been called Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS) and Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder (PGAD).\/p> The weird sensations consist of tingling, itching-like and wave-like sensations, small shocks or cramps in or around the clitoris and vagina. Women usually experience a close to orgasm sensation as if they are on the verge on getting an orgasm. These feelings do not cease like in a genuine orgasm but lead to an imperative urge to masturbate or to have intercourse in an attempt to get rid of these feelings. While having these sensations, women do not long for or fantasize about sex.\/p> Masturbation or intercourse do not lead to a diminishment of the genital sensations, but, usually, aggravate the sensations.\/p> The sensations are usually present the whole day, aggravate with sitting down and are often accompanied by restless legs (restless legs syndrome; RLS) and a frequent urge to void (overactive bladder syndrome; OAB).\/p> Restless genital syndrome makes a woman often completely desperate. Most affected women do not talk about their complaints out of embarrassment. Avoidance to talk with anybody else about the complaints usually leads to social isolation meaning the losing of friends, who usually do not understand what is the matter.\/p>","id":10},{"title":"The tumour that made a family man a paedophile","image":"0","content":" In 2000, a man in America started behaving very differently. A previously happily married man, a schoolteacher and stepfather, after he turned 40 he began visiting prostitutes and uncontrollably collecting child pornography. Then, worst of all, he made sexual advances to his prepubescent stepdaughter. His wife had him evicted from his home, and he was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to a course of rehabilitation. On that course, he made more sexual advances, towards other clients and towards staff, and was sent to prison.\/p> Before he was imprisoned, though, he complained of increasingly bad headaches and worse urges \u2013 it was reported that he feared he would rape his landlady \u2013 and took himself to hospital. Doctors found an egg-sized tumour in a brain region known as the orbifrontal cortex, which is linked to impulse control, judgment, and social interaction. They removed the tumour, and all of the inappropriate sexual urges disappeared. Some months later he moved back into his home, with his wife.\/p> A year later, he again reported headaches, and again displaying paedophilic behaviour. A scan revealed that a part of the tumour had been missed, and it was growing back. When surgeons removed it again, the urges went away again. Russell Swerdlow, one of the neurologists on his case, said that the man was aware that his actions were wrong, but that \u201cin his words, the \u2018pleasure principle\u2019 overrode his restraint\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with the neurology of morality here,\u201d he went on.\/p> Damage to the frontal lobes often reduces our ability to restrain our impulses and urges. David Eagleman uses examples like this to point out that the notion of \u201cresponsibility\u201d is a slippery one: Is the man above \u201cresponsible\u201d for his actions? Is a patient with frontotemporal dementia? Since we are our brains, what happens to \u201cus\u201d when our brain changes? Should the law be changed to reflect current neuroscientific thinking?\/p>","id":11},{"title":"Uner Tan syndrome","image":"0","content":" Uner Tan syndrome, Unertan syndrome or UTS is a syndrome proposed by the Turkish evolutionary biologist \u00dcner Tan. According to Tan, persons affected by this syndrome walk with a quadrupedal locomotion and are afflicted with \"primitive\" speech and severe mental retardation. Tan postulated that this is an example of \"backward evolution\". The proposed syndrome was featured in the 2006 BBC2 documentary The Family That Walks On All Fours.\/p> Cases\/p> The Ula\u015f family of nineteen from rural southern Turkey has been the primary example of the proposed syndrome. Tan described five members as walking with a quadrupedal gait using their feet and the palms of theirhands. In infants, where this is a rare but a normal stage prior and sometimes following bipedal walking, such a gait is called \"bear crawl\". The affected family members are also severely mentally retarded and their speech is affected. Tan proposed that these are symptoms of Uner Tan syndrome.\/p> In January 2008, Tan reported on another family (four males and two females) located in southern Turkey.\/p> Four other unrelated cases in families are described as having various degrees of UTS. Males may be affected more than females. It is also claimed that some individuals are unaware of time, lack language, have severe mental retardation with no conscious experience, and communicate by using sounds. Two males are unable to stand up, while in other cases, can stand up but cannot make a step when standing. Less severe cases usetoe walking, which is a normal phase in child gait development.\/p> Criticism\/p> Neuroscientist and evolutionary psychologist Roger Keynes, psychologist Nicholas Humphrey and medical scientist John Skoyles have argued that the gait of these individuals is due to two rare phenomena coming together, not atavism. First, instead of initially crawling as infants on their knees, they started off learning to move around with a \"bear crawl\" on their feet. Second, due to their congenital brain impairment, they foundbalancing on two legs difficult. Because of this, their motor development was channeled into turning their bear crawl into a substitute for bipedalism.\/p> Uner Tan and colleagues claim that UTS differs from disequilibrium syndrome \/p> It's terribly easy to be led away by some notion of living fossils...I'm not going to make any bones about this. I think that Professor Tan's description of this family as a \"devolution,\" as an evolutionary throwback, is not only scientifically irresponsible, but is deeply insulting to this family.\/p> \u2014\u202fProfessor Nicholas Humphrey, The Family That Walks On All Fours\/p>","id":12}]

 
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