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Weirdest Diseases – Part III – Werewolf Syndrome
The Wolf Boy, Living Werewolf or Dog-Faced Boy have been fixtures of the sideshow world for centuries.
Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy is likely the most famous of the lot however cases of hypertrichosis have been reported and documented long before Jo-Jo.
Hypertrichosis is really a blanket medical term that refers to excessive body hair. It can actually be generalized, symmetrically affecting most of the torso and limbs, or localized, affecting only a small area or location. The term is, however, usually reserved to refer to very above-average amount of normal body hair that is unwanted.
Nearly all the skin of the human body – with the exception of the palms and soles of the feet – are covered with hairs or hair follicles. The density of the hairs per square centimeter, the thickness of the hairs, color of the hairs, speed of hair growth, and qualities such as kinkiness tend to vary from one part of the body to another and also from one person to another. But in hypertrichosis all of the various controllers for the regulation of that genetic information are these lacking, damaged or none existent. Furthermore, there are a few subcategories of hypertrichosis.
Congenital hypertrichosis terminalis is the variation most people associate with the condition. This version involves all over body hair growth. Interestingly this form of hypertrichosis is almost always associated with gingival hyperplasia – meaning these ‘savage and vicious’ wolf men often posses very few teeth. Furthermore persons afflicted are said to have soft, smooth and gentle voices. Naevoid hypertrichosis is an unusual form of hypertrichosis where a solitary circumscribed area of hair growth occurs. It is not usually associated with any other diseases, except if it arises as a faun-tail on the lower back, then it may indicate underlying spina bifida. Naevoid hypertrichosis can occur at birth or appear later in life and symptoms can range from hairy tufted ears, tails, a heavy unibrow or excessive beard growth in females and males alike. Finally, Congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa is a very rare form of hypertrichosis with only about 50 cases reported worldwide since the Middle Ages.
The condition is characterized by excessive hair growth on a child at birth. Most of the body is covered with lanugo hair, which is a fine, soft and silky hair that covers the fetus and which is usually shed at around 8 months gestation and replaced with fine vellus hair. In this condition the hair continues to grow throughout life. The initial shock of a fur covered infant, however, is luckily a very rare occurrence.
The exact cause of hypertrichosis is unknown. But it is believe to be a genetic disorder that is inherited or occurs as a result of spontaneous mutation.
| Listeaza articol | Acest articol a fost scris de Elizabeth in Iulie 1, 2010 la 21:09, si se afla in categoria The intriguing and the fascinating.. |
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Weirdest Diseases – Part IX – Pica
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Definition: Pica is a pattern of eating non-food materials (such as dirt or paper).
Pica
Causes: Pica is seen more in young children than adults. Between 10 and 32% of children ages 1 – 6 have these behaviors.
Pica can occur during pregnancy. In some cases, a lack of certain nutrients, such as iron deficiency anemia and zinc deficiency, may trigger the unusual cravings. Pica may also occur in adults who crave a certain texture in their mouth.
Symptoms: Children and adults with pica may eat:
- Animal feces
- Clay
- Dirt
- Hairballs
- Ice
- Paint
- Sand
This pattern of eating should last at least 1 month to fit the diagnosis of pica.
Exams and Tests
There is no single test that confirms pica. However, because pica can occur in people who have lower than normal nutrient levels and poor nutrition (malnutrition), the health care provider should test blood levels of iron and zinc.
Hemoglobin can also be checked to test for anemia. Lead levels should always be checked in children who may have eaten paint or objects covered in lead-paint dust. The health care provider should test for infection if the person has been eating contaminated soil or animal waste.
Treatment
Treatment should first address any missing nutrients and other medical problems, such as lead exposure.
Treatment involves behavior and development, environmental, and family education approaches. Other successful treatments include associating the pica behavior with bad consequences or punishment (mild aversion therapy) followed by positive reinforcement for eating the right foods.
Medications may help reduce the abnormal eating behavior, if pica occurs as part of a developmental disorder such as mental retardation.
Outlook (Prognosis)
Treatment success varies. In many cases, the disorder lasts several months, then disappears on its own. In some cases, it may continue into the teen years or adulthood, especially when it occurs with developmental disorders.
Possible Complications
When to Contact a Medical Professional
Call your health care provider if you notice that a child (or adult) often eats non-food materials.
There is no specific prevention. Getting enough nutrition may help.
Read more: http://www.drugs.com
Weirdest Diseases – Part VIII – Alice in Wonderland syndrome
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Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS, named after the novel written by Lewis Carroll), also known as Todd’s syndrome, is a disorienting neurological condition which affects human perception. Sufferers may experience micropsia, macropsia, and/or size distortion of other sensory modalities. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines, brain tumors, and the use of psychoactive drugs. It can also present as the initial sign of the Epstein-Barr Virus (mononucleosis). Anecdotal reports suggests that the symptoms of AIWS are fairly common in childhood, with many people growing out of them in their teens. It appears that AIWS is also a common experience at sleep onset.
Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Signs and symptoms
Eye components are entirely normal. The AIWS is a result of change in perception as opposed to the eyes themselves malfunctioning. The hallmark sign of AIWS is a migraine, and may in part be caused by the symptom itself. AIWS affects the sufferer’s sense of visual, sensation, touch, hearing as well as one’s own body image.
The most prominent and often most disturbing symptom is that of altered body image: the sufferer will find that they are confused as to the size and shape of parts of (or all of) their body.
The eyes themselves are normal, but the sufferer ’sees’ objects with the wrong size or shape and/or finds that perspective is incorrect. This can mean that people, cars, buildings, etc. look smaller or larger than they should be, or that distances look incorrect; for example a corridor may appear to be very long, or the ground may appear too close.
In addition, some people may experience more intense and overt hallucinations, seeing things that are not there and misinterpreting events and situations in conjunction with a high fever.
Diagnosis
Because AIWS is a disturbance of perception rather than a specific physiological change to the body’s systems, the diagnosis can be presumed when other, physical causes have been ruled out and if the patient presents with migraines, altered senses and complains of onset during the day (although it can occur night).
Treatment
Treatment is the same as that for other migraine prophylaxis: anticonvulsants, antidepressants, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers, along with strict adherence to the migraine diet.
Prognosis
Whatever the cause, the distortions can recur several times a day and can last from a few minutes to a few weeks. Understandably, the sufferer can become alarmed, frightened, and even panic-stricken. Fortunately, treatment is straight-forward and with an excellent prognosis. This is according to Dr Randolph Evans, a clinician in Houston, Texas and Dr Loren Rolak, a clinician at the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
Epidemiology
No studies are available that display any correlation between age, gender or race. AIWS is thought to be relatively common among migraine sufferers and young children.
Weirdest Diseases – Part VII – Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
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Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) is a disorder in which muscle tissue and connective tissue such as tendons and ligaments are gradually replaced by bone (ossified), forming bone outside the skeleton (extra-skeletal or heterotopic bone) that constrains movement. This process generally becomes noticeable in early childhood, starting with the neck and shoulders and proceeding down the body and into the limbs.
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
Extra-skeletal bone formation causes progressive loss of mobility as the joints become affected. Inability to fully open the mouth may cause difficulty in speaking and eating. Over time, people with this disorder may experience malnutrition due to their eating problems. They may also have breathing difficulties as a result of extra bone formation around the rib cage that restricts expansion of the lungs.
Any trauma to the muscles of an individual with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, such as a fall or invasive medical procedures, may trigger episodes of muscle swelling and inflammation (myositis) followed by more rapid ossification in the injured area. Flare-ups may also be caused by viral illnesses such as influenza.
People with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva are generally born with malformed big toes. This abnormality of the big toes is a characteristic feature that helps to distinguish this disorder from other bone and muscle problems. Affected individuals may also have short thumbs and other skeletal abnormalities.
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva is a very rare disorder, believed to occur in approximately 1 in 2 million people worldwide. Several hundred cases have been reported.
Mutations in the ACVR1 gene cause fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
The ACVR1 gene provides instructions for producing a member of a protein family called bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) type I receptors. The ACVR1 protein is found in many tissues of the body including skeletal muscle and cartilage. It helps to control the growth and development of the bones and muscles, including the gradual replacement of cartilage by bone (ossification) that occurs in normal skeletal maturation from birth to young adulthood.
Researchers believe that a mutation in the ACVR1 gene may change the shape of the receptor under certain conditions and disrupt mechanisms that control the receptor’s activity. As a result, the receptor may be constantly turned on (constitutive activation). Constitutive activation of the receptor causes overgrowth of bone and cartilage and fusion of joints, resulting in the signs and symptoms of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
This condition is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern, which means one copy of the altered gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the disorder.
Most cases of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva result from new mutations in the gene. These cases occur in people with no history of the disorder in their family. In a small number of cases, an affected person has inherited the mutation from one affected parent.
Weirdest Diseases – Part VI – Cotord’s Syndrome
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Cotord’s Syndrome is when a person thinks that they have died, lost their soul, or lost a vital organ, when in fact they have lost nothing. They may even think they do not have blood.
walking corpse
This disorder has been linked to many other disorders including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Other than mental illness this disorder can come about when there is a problem with the persons brain, such as an injury. Some people with this disorder may feel immortal. Although this feeling is very rare among those that have Cotord’s Syndrome. They may test their own mortality by attempting suicide. So you can see that this disorder is very dangerous to the person who has it.
This disorder was named after Jules Cotard, a French neurologist. He first discovered this disorder as well as had a patient with it. He explained in a lecture that she did not believe in God or the devil and did not believe she had certain body parts. She also didn’t think that she had to eat. There are a few other cases that are documented throughout history, this one being in the 1800’s. There are a few cases more recently, such as the one in 1994. A man thought that he did not have a stomach, thus he was starving himself. There is even more recent cases in the 2000’s.
Since this disorder is so rare the right treatments for it are unknown. Many psychiatrists have tried antipsychotic therapy, but this does not seem to work. There have been four cases however that have been helped using electroconvulsive therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy is when electrodes are attached to the top of a persons head and electricity is administered to the brain, to cause a seizure. This is also used in very severe cases of depression.
As you can see there is still much to be learned from this disorder. Since Walking Corpse Syndrome is so rare psychologists and psychiatrists know little about it. Further research in this area can better determine if the therapy used today is the most effective treatment available. Although Electroconvulsive therapy seems to help it can also damage patients. This kind of treatment leads to memory loss in some cases severe memory loss. Although rare this strange disorder is very real to those who have it.
Weirdest Diseases – Part V – Argyria
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Argyria (ISV from Greek: ἄργυρος argyros silver + -ia) is a condition caused by improper exposure to chemical forms of the element silver, silver dust, or silver compounds.
Argyria
The most dramatic symptom of argyria is that the skin becomes blue or bluish-grey colored. Argyria may be found as generalized argyria or local argyria. Argyrosis is the corresponding condition related to the eye. The condition is believed to be permanent, but laser therapy has been used to treat it with satisfactory cosmetic results.
In animals and humans, silver accumulates in the body over time. Chronic intake of silver products can result in an accumulation of silver or silver sulfide particles in the skin. As in photography (where silver is used due to its reactivity with light), these particles in the skin darken with exposure to sunlight, resulting in a blue or gray discoloration of the skin. This condition is known as argyria. Chronic ingestion of silver can similarly lead to an accumulation of silver in the eye (argyrosis) and in other organs. Localized argyria can occur as a result of topical use of substances containing silver, while generalized argyria results from the chronic ingestion of such substances. Argyria is generally believed to be irreversible, with the only practical method of minimizing its cosmetic disfigurement being to avoid the sun, but laser therapy has been used to treat it with satisfactory cosmetic results. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) describes argyria as a “cosmetic problem“, which is not harmful, but it is mildly disfiguring and thus some people find it to be socially debilitating.
Generally, “silver exhibits low toxicity in the human body, and minimal risk is expected due to clinical exposure,” when silver or silver compounds are used in the treatment of external infections or in medical appliances. Lansdown states that “Chronic ingestion or inhalation of silver preparations (especially colloidal silver) can lead to deposition of silver metal/silver sulphide particles in the skin (argyria), eye (argyrosis) and other organs. These are not life-threatening conditions but cosmetically undesirable.”
A prominent case was that of Stan Jones of Montana, a Libertarian candidate for the United States Senate in 2002 and 2006. Jones acquired argyria through consumption of a home-made silver product that he made due to fears that the Year 2000 problem would make antibiotics unavailable. The peculiar colouration of his skin was featured prominently in media coverage of his unsuccessful campaign, though Jones contends that the best-known photo was “doctored”.
On December 20, 2007 the world press published stories about Paul Karason, a California man whose entire skin gradually turned blue after consuming colloidal silver made by himself with distilled water, salt and silver, and using a silver salve on his face in an attempt to treat problems with his sinus, dermatitis, acid reflux, and other issues. This happened because he drank gallons of colloidal silver per week for years.
Weirdest Diseases – Part IV – The Vampire Disease
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The Vampire Disease – Porphyria
porphyria
A rare hereditary blood disease, which causes the inability of the body to reproduce heme, the component of hemoglobin, which is the major component or red blood. Lack of heme causes a porphyriac to experience blood cravings, causing the sufferer of this disease to attack people or animals for their blood in desparate attempt to replace the heme their body could not generate. A driven porphyriac would do this without knowing why he/she had done it.
Porphyria causes skin sensativity to sunlight forcing the sufferer to come out only at night. Garlic, which stimulates heme production in healthy people, contains a chemical that worses then painful symptoms of porphyria. The porphyria sufferer would avoid contact with garlic becaused it caused pain, not because he/she was a Vampire.
More severe symptoms caused by this disease are sores and scars on the skin, exessive hariness, the tightening and stretching of the gums and lips causing teeth to appear fang-like. Aslo, in more severe cases, fingers and nose would sometimes fall off. Bloody sores around the mouth caused by stretching and tightening of the lips may give the appearance of a bloody mouthed vampire that had recently fed from a victim.
This hereditary disease was more likely to occur in earlier times when travel was less common and inbreeding was more common, and their hereditary factor played a larger role. In some cases relatives may have been bitten for their blood simply because they were handy when the porphyria sufferer needed and immediate supply. These donors might later show the same porphyria symptoms and seem to have become Vampires themselves as the result of having been bitten by one. The truth is that they had already aquired the disease at birth, since the disease is hereditary. In this occurance of the disease many members of the community may have developed the belief in the transformation of become a Vampire in a certain village or community where the disease was more common.
10 Weird Science Facts
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Science is strangely complicated and complexly weird.
* The blood vessels, are responsible for enabling the transport of blood throughout the body. If blood vessels were made to lay end to end, all of them together would encircle the Earth twice, by stretching up to a distance of about 100,000 kilometers.
* The human brain, which is the core of the central nervous system and a miraculous creation of nature, can process as many as 70, 000 thoughts in a day!
* Seahorses reproduce in a weird way. It is the male seahorses that get pregnant and give birth to the offsprings. A male seahorse can give birth to as less as one to as many as two thousand fry at one time. One pregnancy lasts for about two to four weeks. When the fry are ready to be born, the male seahorse undergoes muscular contractions to expel the offspring from its pouch.
* Polar bears can run about 25 miles an hour and jump to about 6 feet in air. Polar bear fur consists of a layer of thick under-fur covered by an outer layer of guard hairs. The guard hairs appear in shades of white to tan but are actually transparent. The transparent fur makes the polar bears almost invisible under infrared photography!
* Venus, the second-closest planet to the Sun has continued to arouse the interest of many scientists for years after its discovery. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon. Interestingly, it orbits the Sun in a clockwise direction, whereas the rest of the planets revolve in an anticlockwise manner. A strange aspect of the orbital of Venus is that it reaches the point closest to Earth after every 584 days.
* Science has revealed that a tropical cyclone releases heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 exajoules per day. This rate of the release of energy comes to about 200 times the world’s capacity of generating electrical energy. This rate of energy release is equivalent to that released during an explosion of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes!
* ‘Foetus in foetu’ is a rare abnormality that refers to the phenomenon of a fetus getting trapped inside a twin’s body. The fetus continues to grow like a parasite inside a person’s body, leeching the person’s blood supply. It gradually grows so large that it begins harming the host’s body, after which it has to be surgically removed.
* On an average, a person accidentally eats about 430 bugs in each year of his/her life. This one is definitely weird.
* Bamboo trees fall under the group of woody perennial evergreen plants. Interestingly, giant bamboo species form the largest members of the grass family. Bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant in the world. Some species of bamboo achieve a growth rate of an astonishing 3-4 feet per day!
* Coffee is a daily drink of the most of you all. But did you know that a single cup of coffee contains over 1000 chemical substances?
Extraordinary Human Abilities – Part 3: Absolute pitch
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Absolute Pitch, or Perfect Pitch, is the ability to name or reproduce a tone with nothing but your mind.
People with absolute pitch are capable of identifying and reproducing a tone without needing a known reference.
It is not simply a better ability to hear but the ability to mentally class sounds into remembered categories. Examples of this include identifying the pitch of everyday noises (e.g. horns, sirens, and engines), being able to sing a named note without hearing a reference, naming the tones of a chord, or naming the key signature of a song.
Doing any of these is a cognitive act – it requires one to remember the frequency of each tone, be able to label it (e.g. ‘A’, ‘C#’, or ‘F-flat’), and sufficient exposure to the range of sound within each label. Opinions vary as to whether absolute pitch is genetic or a learned ability that is strongly influenced to one’s exposure to music at crucial developmental stages – much like how a child’s ability to identify colors by their frequency depends on the type and level of their exposure to it.
Estimates of the portion of the population having absolute pitch range from 3% of the general population in the US and Europe to 8% of those (from the same areas) who are semi-professional or professional musicians. In music conservatories in Japan however, about 70% of musicians have absolute pitch. Part of the reason for this significantly larger percentage may be because absolute pitch is more common among people who grew up in a tonal (Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese) or pitch accent (Japanese) language environment.
Absolute pitch is also more common in those who are blind from birth, have William’s Syndrome, or have an autism spectrum disorder.
Here’s a documentary excerpt about perfect pitch:
Extraordinary Human Abilities – Part 2: Echolocation
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Echolocation is how bats fly around in dark forests – they emit a sound, wait for the echo to return, and use that sound of the echo in each ear plus the return time to work out where an object is and how far away. Surprisingly (well, maybe not on this list!), humans are also capable of using echolocation. Use of echolocation is probably restricted to blind people because it takes a long time to master and heightened sensitivity to reflected sound.
To navigate via echolocation a person actively creates a noise (e.g. tapping a cane or clicking the tongue) and determines from the echoes where objects are located around them. People skilled at this can often tell where an object is, what size it is, and its density. Because humans cannot make or hear the higher pitched frequencies that bats and dolphins use they can only picture objects that are comparatively larger than those ‘seen’ by echolocating animals.
People with the ability to echolocate include James Holman, Daniel Kish, and Ben Underwood. Perhaps the most remarkable and well-documented of cases is the story of Ben Underwood, who lost both his eyes to retinal cancer at the age of three. He is shown in the video below (warning: the scene where he puts in his prosthetic eyeballs maybe a bit disturbing for some).
Still, it is worth checking it out!
Extraordinary Human Abilities – Part 1: Eidetic memory
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When a person has photographic memory or total recall this is called eidetic memory.
It is the ability to recall sounds, images, or objects from one’s memory with extreme accuracy. Examples of eidetic memory include the effort of Akira Haraguchi who recited from memory the first 100,000 decimal places of pi and the drawings of Stephen Wiltshire (who is an autistic savant) – his recreation of Rome is shown in the video below.
Stephen Wiltshire
Kim Peek, the inspiration for the autistic (Peek is not actually autistic though) character of Raymond Babbit in the movie Rainman, also possesses eidetic memory – among other things he can recall some 12,000 books from memory.
Whether true photographic memory exists in adults is still a controversial issue, but it is accepted that eidetic abilities are distributed evenly between men and women. One also cannot become an eidetiker through practice.
Stephen Wiltshire has been called the “Human Camera”.
In this short excerpt below from the film Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain, Wiltshire takes a helicopter journey over Rome and then draws a panoramic view of what he saw, entirely from memory.
Also, here are some samples of his amazing work:
