Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
We’re all a little grossed out by simple bodily things. Some people really dislike feet (for obvious reasons, yuck). Others find the usual bodily fluids disgusting. Again, very understandable.
But what we often forget is that our own body is capable of things that are far more disgusting than we might think, but a lot of us just don’t notice. But fret not, because a netizen decided to ask exactly what gross fact about the human body most of us don’t know, and the selection is… offensive, to say the least.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
So apparently when you have scurvy, all you old wounds begin to open up again.
detective miller's hat 1 day ago
I knew a kid at uni whose diet was so horrendous, he gave himself scurvy.
RELATED:
#2
Your belly button is basically just a scar where they unplugged you from the mothership.
LizzieBoredom 1 day ago (edited)
But when I suggest unplugging, and plugging back in, my Mom has a fit.
#3
You can sometimes actually feel your organs sliding back into place in the days after giving birth.
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.
#4
The human body produces about a liter of mucus every single day. Most of it you just swallow without realizing.
#5
You can have extra little spleens throughout your body. In pathology we call them “spleenlets.”.
#6
Right now, millions of microscopic, eight-legged Demodex mites are crawling, mating & ending inside your facial pores…because they don't have an behind, they eventually explode and release a lifetime of accumulated waste directly onto your skin…. 🤪.
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.
#7
Humans have a mammary line like dogs and cats do. We usually only develop breast tissue on our chest but sometimes we develop it in other areas.
Found this out when I leaked breast milk from my armpit 🙃.
#8
Your body odor is the farts of bacteria. All those little critters are just farting on you 24/7.
#9
Most smells your body “makes” are secondarily made by creatures living on you and inside you .
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?
#10
Speaking of the uterus...I didn't know when I was 10yrs old and my 93yr grandmother was having trouble keeping her hands out of her pants what she could possibly doing. Then I overheard her in the bathroom with my older sister who was a newly minted Nurse Practitioner tell her that her uterus had 'prolapsed' and had literally started to fall out through her privates and my sister was going to help her 'tuck it back in'.
#11
Every time you kiss someone you’re swapping about 80 million bacteria. Your mouth is basically a petri dish.
George Costanza 15 hours ago
And the vast, vast, vast majority of those bacteria are not pathogenic in any way. They're just living their life within your life.
#12
Most of your neurotransmitters are produced by the bacteria in your gut, not your brain.
Rick Murray 1 day ago
I have three. One reports on the quantity of tea in me, one reports in the quantity of sugar, and the final one reports on the quantity of pasta. My entire life revolves around keeping those three sated and balanced.
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.
#13
The fact that our skin is basically a full time shedding factory.
driedgrapes 1 day ago
Sometimes when I'm dusting (haha yeah right) I remember it it's all mostly just us.
#14
Your mouth and lips are the same kind of tissue as your a*****e. Because we formed first from a few cells trying to be a digestive tract, then they slowly go their separate ways as we develop.
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.
#16
There’s a spooky skeleton inside.
#18
Molar pregnancy. It's when a collection of cysts grows inside the uterus. They unfortunately had a picture of one in a textbook for class, and i needed to take a break for 15 minutes after seeing that.
George Costanza 15 hours ago
Comes from triploid gestations. Not terribly uncommon, but usually passed without issue.
#19
Your brain, there is no shortage of ailments, diseases, and abnormalities that can take an entire healthy body and system and make it want to destroy itself through depression, anxiety, alcoholism, a*******n, and a thousand different tormenting thoughts and feelings.
#20
Chronic Inflammation between two organs that reside next to each other can lead to formation of a fistula (an joined opening between two organs that normally are supposed to stay sealed and separate), say your bladder and intestines... essentially making you pee p**p.
Huddo's sister 11 hours ago
Women in countries where there is little access to maternity care often develop fistulas between the v****a and bladder opening, or even r****m. Especially if they have an impacted birth (baby not actually descending, even after days of labour) which is particularly for women that are actually little more than girls, because their pubic bones have not widened as much as needed. In these countries having a fistula is often untreated, and taboo to talk about, so the women are subject to years of constant incontinence. There are some charities that will have doctors that can do surgery to fix them though.
#21
Rock babies? I cant remember the actual name. But people have a miscarriage and the body locks the passed baby in calcium to protect itself. Most people don't even know they have them.
#22
Your body is constantly covered in tiny microorganisms, and most of them are actually helping keep you alive.
#24
The fastest k*****g virus takes around 4 days to k**l you. That would be Ebola.
Your immune system can k**l you in 15 minutes.
#25
When women have a c section they just put everything back in & your body slots everything back into place
That funny feeling your stomach gets when you go down a rollercoaster etc? That’s your insides floating about.
#26
You can p**e out through your nose and sinuses.
It s***s, like, a lot.
F**k you influenza.
Rick Murray 1 day ago
If you have ever properly ralphed, you'll be aware of this. And you'll also be aware that about three hours later when you're starting to feel a little less awful, there will be a swooshing feeling in your nose and a big piece of diced carrot will fall into your mouth from somewhere and you'll immediately feel queasy all over again because "I haven't eaten diced carrot since boarding school thirty years ago so what the f**k even is this?". If you're clenching and thinking "shut up Rick, just shut up" then you know exactly what I'm talking about. 😉
#27
Some cheeses and smelly feet share odor compounds, including butyric acid. That’s why a strong cheese can sometimes smell uncannily like a locker room. Also: I’m going to vom now.
#29
Your body is full of p*o and pee and skeletons right now.
Rick Murray 1 day ago
Well, I trust everybody reading has a skeleton, otherwise you might be what Boris Johnson called "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies".
#30
Amniotic fluid is partially fetal urine and, once the gut has formed, the fetus will be constantly drinking and excreting further fluid.
#31
One word: Teratoma.
#32
Your b******e can stretch to about 7 inches. Rats only require 1.5 inches to squeeze into a space.
Rick Murray 1 day ago
I can top most of that. Many years ago a vole snuck into my room and it had a habit of getting into the budgie cage to eat the seed. I saw it actually fit itself between the bars of the cage (maybe a little under a centimetre?). The story has a happy ending. It's a inquisitive little critter, I next saw it climbing out of the dressing gown on my bed to come and look at me. When it saw I had seen, it stayed for a few moments before scuttling back into the arm of the dressing gown. So I grabbed the arm at each end to trap it and took it outside to the woodshed. It ran out when free, looked at around, then stared directly into my soul before climbing into the wood somewhere. Voles are weird.
#34
Not as disgusting as it is horrifying, but if your immune system finds out your eyes exist—it will essentially try to get rid of them. It will start an autoimmune attack leading to various eye diseases, inflammation, and even loss of eyesight💀.
#35
Not disgusting but interesting, your tongue rests on the roof of your mouth.
#36
Our brains are sitting in liquid that is cleaned while we sleep. If we don’t get enough sleep the liquid stays dirty, resulting in brain fog, memory problems etc.
Ace 1 day ago
That's.... not how it works. It's possible that more fluid is circulated around the brain while sleeping, and that his may help remove excess protein molecules, but it's not 'water' and it is not 'dirty'. Nor is there any specific connection to those particular neurological conditions.
Explore more of these tags
What do you think ?
David Paterson 13 hours ago (edited)
May I add one. I'm a carrier for a chromosomal disorder. These affect multiple genes at the same time. So I looked through an anatomy book of children affected by chromosomal disorders. (Think real life mutants). I do not recommend looking.
Huddo's sister 10 hours ago
I was looking into that just yesterday. It started with looking at which chromosomes were related to different conditions, then I went deeper into the disorder two of my brothers had. We didn't know when they were alive that some of their facial features were affected by the condition (we didn't know what the condition even was) but seeing photos of children that were in case studies you could definitely see the similarities! I have always found this stuff fascinating.
Load More Replies...
Brian Droste 11 hours ago
I have one. There is good bacteria in our bodies that fight off bad bacteria otherwise we would be sick all the time and would need outside help to keep healthy. Can you imagine taking 20/30 or morw pills a day to keep healthy?
David Paterson 13 hours ago (edited)
May I add one. I'm a carrier for a chromosomal disorder. These affect multiple genes at the same time. So I looked through an anatomy book of children affected by chromosomal disorders. (Think real life mutants). I do not recommend looking.
Huddo's sister 10 hours ago
I was looking into that just yesterday. It started with looking at which chromosomes were related to different conditions, then I went deeper into the disorder two of my brothers had. We didn't know when they were alive that some of their facial features were affected by the condition (we didn't know what the condition even was) but seeing photos of children that were in case studies you could definitely see the similarities! I have always found this stuff fascinating.
Load More Replies... Brian Droste 11 hours ago
I have one. There is good bacteria in our bodies that fight off bad bacteria otherwise we would be sick all the time and would need outside help to keep healthy. Can you imagine taking 20/30 or morw pills a day to keep healthy?
Related on Bored Panda
