upworthy

biology

Health

Doctors share bizarre things about the human body that we still can't explain

No one knows why anesthesia actually works.

Photo credit: Canva

We know a lot, but we clearly don't know everything.

Ever watch a period piece movie or TV show where the well intentioned doctors used maggots in hopes of cleaning a wound? Or when lobotomies were the tried-and-true method of relieving mental disorders? We’ve come quite a long way in terms of medical progress since those days, but in other ways, we are just as much making our best guess about how the human body actually works as we were in the maggot days.

Even doctors can admit that many biological ins-and-outs remain a mystery, which can be frustrating as a patient when you’re told to take certain medications "because it helps” this or that ailment, without actually knowing why. But at the same time, you have to kind of marvel at how much there is yet to discover, even within us. It only further shows the need to continue investing in medical research, but that’s a different conversation.

Recently, several doctors online shared many things that we still don’t really know about the human body, and some of the answers were pretty surprising:

“I’m an anesthesiologist. We still don’t really know why inhaled volatile anesthetics like sevoflurane, the principal anesthetic agent used to maintain general anesthesia, work. We kind of have an idea of maybe how it happens, but really we don’t know. It’s commonly said in my field that whoever figures this out will win the next Nobel prize in medicine.”

doctor providing anesthesia to a patientWeird...but effective. Photo credit: Canva

That’s interesting. And now for something a tad grosser…

“We apparently don't know precisely how our bodies can distinguish gas from poop. We have some ideas, we know there are a ton of nerve endings in the area, but the precise mechanism of our bodies telling our brains ‘this is a fart, let loose’ isn't really understood. What blows my mind is, it's distinct enough that we even pass gas while asleep. That difference must be wired DEEP!”

a person holding their behind that's glowing red to signify gasWe don't know how our bodies know, but thank goodness they do. Photo credit: Canva

Quite a few answers pertained to some topics we might never actually solve.

“The Role of Our DNA: We’ve sequenced the human genome, but a large part of it remains unexplained.”

a hand holding a strand of DNASeems pretty important. Photo credit: Canva

“I’m a derm. We don’t know what exactly causes itching, like the molecular pathways for it. That’s why it can be so hard to find a good treatment when a patient comes in for itchy skin.”

a woman scratching her armTrial and error.Photo credit: Canva

“I'm a sleep specialist. While we do have some good theories about some of the functions of REM as far as how it affects the brain and health, we still don't fully understand the purpose of dreaming. Like, why do we dream at all and why do dreams have a narrative instead of random incomprehensible imagery? Unfortunately this is unlikely to even be solved..”

a woman sleepingMaybe our brains get bored while we're out and want to watch a self-made movie? Photo credit: Canva

There were a few mysteries that pertain specifically to women’s health. Historically, women's health research has been significantly underfunded and understudied, so this is fairly unsurprising.

“OBGYN here: we still don’t know exactly what makes labor start. We know all about the mechanics and physiology, but we don’t know what makes the average uterus say it’s ‘go time.’”

pregnant woman holding her stomach in pain When the body knows, it knows. Photo credit: Canva

“Apparently we know next to nothing about fibroids, which like 75% of women have at some point in their lives. That's great, considering that the largest one removed was 100 lbs- so not exactly a minor issue. There are theories about different hormones and what things put you at higher risk, but aside from having surgery to have your existing ones removed, there is basically no information on what you can to do prevent them from coming back.”

doctor presenting a model of a uterus while a woman sits on a medical chair in the backgroundIt's a big deal and we need to understand it. Photo credit: Canva

There was also talk of how our gut—how we process nutrition, and how that affects our mental health—is somewhat of a final frontier in medicine.

“We don't know the precise mechanism by which B12 deficiency causes nerve damage. We know that it happens, but not why.”

collection of foods around a sign that says, "Vitamin B12"B12, the final frontier.Photo credit: Canva

“Not MD but PhD, right now we are working on the connection between our intestinal microbiome and neuropsychiatric disease and brain aging. For instance, people with inflammatory bowel disease are more likely to develop dementia and experience co-morbid anxiety and depression, but we don't know why.”

“The Gut Microbiome: While it's well-known that the gut plays a huge role in digestion, researchers are discovering just how much our gut bacteria affect other parts of our health, like mood, immunity, and even brain function.”

diagram of the digestive system with a close up of gut bacteriaSome say we have two brains: in the head and in the gut.Photo credit: Canva

For those who have ever taken anti-anxiety medication…

“Benzodiazepines, BZD, are medications like Xanax and Valium. They produce anti-anxiety effects. And they have a very distinct chemical shape to fit into the BZD site in a group of five proteins. But we don’t know what is supposed to go there. Many medications are analogs of naturally binding molecules that we copy and then use to create an effect. The BZD site is for something, we just don’t know what.”

close up of a bunch of pillsPhoto credit: Canva

By and large, mental health is still the Wild Wild West for medical professionals, it seems.

“Doctor here. Off the top of my head, here's a few deceptively big ones:

  1. Psychiatry is still shockingly infantile in our understanding of human disorders. It's constantly in a state of flux, we don't understand a lot about the meds we currently use, and the diagnostic criteria for disorders still changes as we realize "hey maybe all these behaviors aren't the same source disorder". It's incredibly hard to diagnose when the criteria is largely based on self report and subjective observations.
  2. To a lesser degree than #1, neurology is still learning a lot. It's further because you can observe more objective findings in neuro than psych, but we still struggle a lot with how brains function."

a red cut out of a head with a tangle of string where the brain would be; a blue cut out of a head with a spiral of string where the brain should beAren't we all just brains trying to understand ourselves? Photo credit: Canva

And yet, another doctor writes:

“One of the few ABSOLUTES in medical science is that nobody born blind has ever developed schizophrenia.”

Goes to show, we might be in the age of information, but there is still so much of the unknown to marvel at. Hopefully it keeps us humble and curious.

From Your Site Articles
science
Most Shared

Welcome to the Sloth Institute, a home for wayward baby sloths.

These sloths didn't have mothers, so this woman became their human substitute.

A sloth’s desire to cling to trees, other sloths, and people might seem adorable, but it’s actually the only way they can survive infancy.

Kermie the Sloth. All photos from Sam Trull, used with permission.

Sam Trull, the co-founder of The Sloth Institute Costa Rica, is deeply aware of this fact.

Since 2013, she’s been in Costa Rica doing everything she can to help rescue, rehabilitate, and ultimately release sloths back into the wild.

Trull and Monster.

Releasing sloths back into the wild is a tough, slow process.

There are many things about a sloth’s physiology that make re-release difficult: Sloths who were babies in captivity never learned primary survival skills from their mothers, and humans still don't know enough about a sloth's biology, ecology, social construct, or instinctual abilities to make up for what the sloths didn't get from their moms.

Locket and Elvis.

But Trull is determined to trudge on because she knows her sloth charges will be happier when they’re free.

"I think there is a big misconception that because sloths are slow and lazy they are okay with captivity … but that couldn't be further from the truth," Trull told Upworthy.

Prior to her work with sloths, Trull worked in primate conservation both in the United States and abroad.

She was introduced to sloths in 2013 when she joined a small wildlife rehabilitation clinic on the Pacific Coast called Kids Saving the Rainforest.


That’s where she met Kermie, a two-week-old baby two-toed sloth who had recently lost his mother.

Trull instantly fell in love and, for the next several months, assumed the vital role as Kermie's mother.

Kermie as a tiny baby sloth.

She cuddled Kermie, fed him, and played with him but ultimately never forgot the goal was to return him to his jungle home. However, she would soon find that his release involved a complicated and comprehensive plan ending in something called a "soft release."

A "soft release" allows sloths to take their time getting acclimated to the jungle before they go off on their own.

It's a concept inspired by the lemur "boot camps" Trull witnessed during her work with the Duke Lemur Center.

Monster the sloth in a basket.

To make the soft release happen, Trull and her team set up a 19-foot-cubed cage near the rehabilitation site where they keep sloths for several months until they appear ready for release.

At that point, the cage door is left open, and the sloths can come and go as they please. "The goal is that they eventually spend more and more time outside the cage and more and more time eating wild foods until they are 100% wild," Trull said.

In 2015, Trull and her team performed soft releases with Kermie and Ellen, another sloth who came to KSTR as a baby.

Monster the sloth eating a flower.

So far, both are doing well in the wild.

Trull's team will keep monitoring their progress, too, including how well they’re integrating with the other wild sloths. But there's also only so much they can do to ensure the sloths' survival.

This is perhaps the hardest aspect of Trull’s job: letting go.

She has witnessed a number of sloth casualties over these past few years, and each one to her, the self-proclaimed Mother of Sloths, has been devastating.


However, since most of the deaths occurred in captivity, they strengthen Trull’s resolve to get all those remaining back to their outdoor home.

Much is still unknown about sloths’ biology, ecology, and sociology, which is why it’s part of The Sloth Institute’s mission to learn and educate.

Pelota the sloth.

While The Sloth Institute works primarily with rescue and rehabilitation organizations like KSTR right now, Trull and co-founder Seda Sejud have turned their focus toward the bigger picture.

They want to give their program more reach, and that requires more research and larger funds, which sometimes keeps Trull away from the sloths for days at a time.

However, even though she’s not hand-raising sloth babies every day anymore, her proximity to the field site allows her to check in on her sloths on a regular basis. And at the end of the day, it all comes back to sloth love, which also happens to be the name of Trull’s new book.

"Slothlove" is filled with beautiful photos Trull has taken on her journey rehabilitating sloths, many of which you saw here in this story.

The book tells the story of Trull's relationships with the many sloths she rescued, some of which are thriving, and some of which sadly did not make it past captivity. Her work is all-consuming, and while it’s never easy, she feels like it allows her to give back in an unquantifiable way.

Trull says her work with sloths has taught her to love unconditionally and absolutely.

Chuck the sloth with his BFF, Ellen.

“They have also taught me to never give up ... that the only way to make progress in life is to persevere through each and every obstacle with the knowledge that another one is coming,” she told Upworthy.

That’s a valuable lesson for all of us.

From Your Site Articles
Family

How human beings could ruin mosquito sex in Fresno, California.

It's summer. Time for backyard barbecues, hikes, and enough mosquito spray to fill a blimp.

I'm ready for that hike now. Image from iStock.

Mosquitoes can be a perennial annoyance, a literal pain in the butt, and can even carry dangerous diseases like the Zika virus or dengue.

It might seem a little weird that a research company is releasing 20 million of the little buggers. On purpose. In Fresno.

The company, known as Verily Life Sciences, is a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company. In between projects for tiny glucose monitors and better spoons, scientists found the time to breed and release 20 million male mosquitoes in Fresno County, California.

Dun, dun, dunnnnn! ... Actually, it's fine. Photo from iStock.

All 20 million of the mosquitoes were male and all 20 million were sterile. They had been raised in a robotic lab and purposefully infected with a common, human-friendly bacteria known as Wolbachia, which takes the spring out of male mosquitoes' steps, as it were.

This isn't the start of a new mosquito-themed horror movie. The technique is actually a form a pest management that works like insect birth control.

Like a flock of tiny little vampires. Photo from iStock.

Any eggs these sterile mosquitoes father in the wild will be duds, which means once it comes time for the next generation, the people of Fresno County should see fewer of the little bloodsuckers flying around.

This approach to pest control is known as the sterile insect techniqueand is part of a trial to see if Verily can use this to fight Zika and other mosquito-borne infections. It's worked with other insects before, after all.

Their release is the largest field trial in the U.S. so far.

By the way, don't worry about any unforeseen bites in the meantime. Male mosquitoes don't drink blood.

This is not just a neat technique, it's a reminder that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to go back to the source.

There are times in life where we run ourselves ragged trying to fix a problem, only to realize we were treating the symptom and not the cause. I wouldn't have to worry about my weekly Chipotle bill, for example, if I was better at making lunches the night before.

Same in health and science. People have used pesticides, mosquito repellants, and vaccines to fight these buggers and their diseases — and don't get me wrong, these are all effective and worthy causes, but it's also cool to see people tackling the problem at its source.

Maybe the solution to there being too many mosquitoes is to ... just create fewer mosquitoes.

Family

If you're a chronic worrier, here's what you should know about your brain.

Image created from Pixabay.

Everybody has a little worrying to do.

I worry a lot. I worry about my friends, my health, my planet. Heck, I worry about worrying too much.

It can keep me up at night wondering whether I've ruined my shoes by buying shoe polish, or it can make me read that one email 10 times before sending it off. It can be tempting to hate my brain for worrying so much.

Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on myself. Every human being worries. And it turns out, worrying can have some surprising upsides, as professor Kate Sweeny recently wrote. So if you're the kind of person who worries about worrying, here are two big things to remember, courtesy of Sweeny:

1. Worrying is a track coach, keeping our brains active and motivated.

mental health, fear, anxiety, psychology

Always stretch your brain and your body.

Image via Pixabay.

Nobody would hate their brains for making them feel scared when there's a big, obvious danger. Like an angry tiger. Or a bear. Or an angry tiger riding a bear. In that case, we need an immediate motivator for an immediate problem.

But our brains need a subtler response to subtler problems. Worry and anxiety can help our brains recognize and focus on long-term problems or motivate us to make better choices, like wearing our seat belts or applying sunscreen to avoid skin cancer.

2. Worrying is an emotional cushion, making our highs higher and lows not as bad.

emotional intelligence, research, biology of fear, coping with stress

Sometimes multiple pillows just happen.

Image via Pixabay.

Though worrying itself is unpleasant, it can help balance out our other emotions. One study showed the BBC television sitcom "Fawlty Towers" got funnier after watching a tense horror movie.

On the flip side, if things end up going south, your brain has already prepared itself. So worrying can be an emotional win-win.

But like all things, there's a right amount.

While a little worry can help us stay motivated, too much can paralyze us and can be a sign of anxiety disorders. If that's what's going on, taking a break from Facebook, practicing meditation, exercising, and talking with a therapist can all help reduce anxiety.

So, biologically, don't hate your brain for worrying.

Worry can be stressful. It's not fun to stay awake thinking about what you're going to say to your boss on Monday, whether you're eating right, or whether you're being a good friend. You might find yourself beset by worries at the worst time.

And that's OK. We can't always control our brains, but we worrywarts don't always need to feel bad for worrying. Sometimes it's our brain just helping us out.


Trending Stories