“Farts Of Bacteria”: 37 Human Body Facts That Make Existing Feel A Little More Uncomfortable

The human body goes through changes. With hormonal imbalances and even immune system issues, your organs and body in general can start functioning a bit differently. But few things change human biology quite as much as pregnancy, which is why so many of the responses on the thread focus on the bodies of pregnant women.

What you may not have ever thought about (because why would you?) is the fact that your organs are basically just kind of shifting around. Experts explain that during pregnancy, the organs move to make room for the fetus as it grows. And after birth, women may actually feel their organs shifting back into place over time. Apparently, they also float during roller coasters. Interesting, but pretty yucky.

Perhaps one of the most unsettling things to think about when it comes to your own body is, well, the living beings on it. That's right, we're pretty much a walking, living, and breathing planet for billions of bacteria, mites, fungi, and even viruses. And the mental images some of these creatures bring to mind are disturbing, to say the very least.

Perhaps the most unsettling to think about, though, are the mites, more specifically, Demodex mites, which you might know as face mites. They are eight-legged microscopic mites that live inside your facial hair follicles. They spend their days feeding on your sebum and even crawl out to mate, lay eggs, and then crawl back inside. But according to experts, they're harmless and even healthy. Who knew.

And of course, most of us don't even think about getting diseases that are so brutally destructive to the body that they can lead to some really... disgusting outcomes. So when one of the entries on the list mentioned scurvy, we had to look into it and fact-check whether the claims were actually true.

And, well, they are. According to health experts, your body uses collagen to keep scars closed, and scars never fully heal. That means your body is constantly producing fresh collagen to maintain them, and collagen can't be produced without vitamin C. So if you develop scurvy and don't receive treatment, old scars can reopen. Fancy an orange now?

Crazy as it sounds, scurvy isn't the only disease that can cause your body to react in extreme ways. Acute radiation sickness can essentially destroy your cells and prevent new ones from growing. Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva can cause your body to form bone instead of muscle during wound healing. But you know what? What if your own immune system were your biggest enemy?

Yeah, that's right, your immune system has the potential to turn against you in a matter of seconds. Some experts even point out that if your immune system were to recognize certain parts of your eyes as foreign, it could begin attacking them. During development in the womb, the immune system learns to recognize most of your body's tissues as its own, but not the eyes. A simple design flaw.

All in all, your body is constantly built on a “good enough” basis from a survival standpoint. Sure, we can reproduce and keep ourselves alive for the most part, but we’re also a bit of a biological mess. Made up of evolutionary compromises and happy accidents.

In reality, we’re perfectly flawed. Well, that is, if you don’t think too hard about all the gross things going on inside us. So, do you have any fun facts that are actually pretty disgusting to add to this list? Let us know if there’s anything about the human body that’s quietly horrifying in ways most people don’t think about.