17 Fascinating Things That We Still Do *Not* Know About The Human Body, According To Medical Experts
"We don't know how our bodies can distinguish gas from poop. 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."
1. "We 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 that it's distinct enough that we even pass gas while asleep. That difference must be wired DEEP!"
2. "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."
3. "I’m an anesthesiologist. We still don’t really know why inhaled volatile anesthetics like sevoflurane, the main anesthetic agent used to maintain general anesthesia, work. We kind of have an idea of maybe how it happens, but we don’t really know. It’s commonly said in my field that whoever figures this out will win the next Nobel Prize in medicine."
4. "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."
6. For many medicines, it is not clear how they work, or even if they work (for example, look at the actual efficacy trials of name-brand antidepressants). When you look at them in aggregate, they look like they barely work. Yet, basically everybody knows somebody whose life was saved by a specific antidepressant."
10. "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 change as we realize, 'Hey, maybe all these behaviors aren't the same source disorder.' It's incredibly hard to diagnose when the criteria are largely based on self-report and subjective observations."
"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."
14. "We know next to nothing about fibroids, which many women have at some point in their lives. Considering the largest one removed was around 100 pounds, it is 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 do to prevent them from coming back."
16. "We don’t know what is supposed to naturally bind to the area that benzodiazepines work at. Benzodiazepines, BZD, are medications like Xanax and Valium. They produce anti-anxiety effects and 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 occurring binding molecules that we copy and then use to create an effect. The BZD site is for something, we just don’t know what."
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