On the r/AskReddit subreddit, u/Immediate_Hair_3393 has posed the question, "Doctors of Reddit, what do we *not* know about the human body?" The discussion illuminates several intriguing aspects of human anatomy and physiology that remain enigmatic or not widely understood.
Some broad topics of medicine seem to just work without us knowing how. One of the most prominent of these topics is anesthesia. Despite its widespread use in modern medicine, exactly how anesthesia induces unconsciousness is not fully understood.
Similarly, the brain remains one of the most mysterious organs. Discussions on Reddit touched upon conditions like traumatic brain injuries and how they can dramatically impact one’s personality. Moreover, another interesting point raised is that people who are born blind cannot develop schizophrenia. This observation implies that something about our visual input is a prerequisite to the condition.
In addition to these neurological mysteries, the Reddit thread underscores that researchers have yet to understand numerous aspects of the human body fully. These discussions highlight the complexity of human biology and the continuous need for scientific exploration to unravel these mysteries.
Furthermore, many initial tests are done on animals, as they are closely related to humans genetically, before risking human test subjects. However, as many have pointed out, even those tests are not always accurate to the population. Medical tests are historically only done on genetically male subjects, even in animals.
Check out 20 responses on Reddit from doctors and other healthcare professionals below:
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"And wildly, when pregnant, symptoms seem to simply disappear from some people, like their lives are so different while pregnant & as soon as they give birth the symptoms come back. It’s wild"—u/sthsthsth
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"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." —u/criduchat1-
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"Adding on to the OBGYN topic: the placenta is so understudied!" —u/predisposedthinking
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"I had a lecturer at medical school say 'half of medicine is made up, we just don't know which half'" —u/aloadofguff
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"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."—u/3Magic_Beans
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