10: Severe Plantar Warts Perhaps the grossest and most common disease
we're going to talk about today isn't really a disease at all.
It's more of a disgusting and seriously unfortunate condition, one known as plantar warts.
These warts grow on people’s feet and look like ugly white pieces of corn or like really
nasty scabs.
They are often caused by an HPV infection.
Plantar warts can grow so big and become so foul on a person's foot that surgery is needed
to remove them from the soles of the feet.
If left untreated, these gross white warts growing like fungus on a person's feet can
get so bad that amputation is necessary!
And try what you may, these things don't go away easily.
Chemicals and acids don't get rid of them, ointments don't get rid of them, and it's
basically impossible to walk once the warts take over your feet.
The worst part is you won't even know you have severe plantar warts until it’s too
late!
As a word of advice, be sure to check your feet every now and again to see if you have
white chalky stuff growing out of them!
9: Melting Skin Epidermolysis bullosa, or EB for short, is
an incredibly rare genetic skin condition primarily characterized by very fragile skin.
A person born with this unbelievable condition is constantly at risk of basically having
their skin melt all the way off.
The fragile skin is very easily damaged, which can lead to lots of blisters and wounds.
The disease affects the mucous membranes as well, even inside of the respiratory system
and the gastrointestinal tract.
The disease is, quite frankly, debilitating.
It even has a status as an “orphan disease.”
Unfortunately, there is no cure yet for EB and barely any treatments available.
The only thing that can be done is to soothe pain caused by the melting flesh!
The science behind EB is shocking.
EB is caused by poor anchoring of the epidermis to the underlying dermis.
In simpler terms: the skin doesn’t stick properly to the mucous membrane beneath.
Think of wallpaper that doesn’t stick to drywall and easily falls off.
Only this is with human skin!
The root cause of the poor anchoring is a defect in genes.
The skin has no integrity.
It’s estimated that 20 in every 1 million live births will have Epidermolysis bullosa.
Someone suffering from this disease has a fairly low chance of survival.
8: The Werewolf Gene Scientists have recently discovered a genetic
mutation that causes people to turn into werewolves!
Well.
They don't exactly turn into man-eating monsters howling at the full moon, but they do grow
exceptionally thick hair like wolf fur all over their faces and bodies.
It can happen to both men and women, and the result is quite shocking.
The disease itself is known as hypertrichosis, commonly referred to as werewolf syndrome.
There have been fewer than 100 cases documented throughout history.
What researchers do know about this wildly rare disease is that it runs in the family
bloodline.
Back in 1995, scientists traced the exact location of the mutation to a part of the
X chromosome in a Mexican family who had been affected by werewolf syndrome.
About 30 people in the family have been diagnosed with hypertrichosis.
Just recently, a girl from Thailand with werewolf syndrome earned her place in the Guinness
Book of World Records for being the hairiest child in the world.
At least there's some consolation to being born a werewolf.
According to Live Science, the disease is probably caused by an extra piece of DNA that
switches on hair growth and can’t turn it off, turning people into real-life fur monsters.
This gene is called SOX3.
Have you heard of werewolf syndrome before?
Let me know in the comments below and while you’re at it, give this video a like and
hit that subscribe button too if you haven’t already :)
7: Benjamin Button Disease Did you know that the Benjamin Button disease
is actually a very real thing, not just a Hollywood movie starring our man Brad Pitt.
It’s known properly as progeria disease or Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
This rare genetic condition doesn't exactly cause somebody to age backwards though.
What it does do is force a child’s body to age much faster than normal.
This is caused by a mutation in the LMNA gene.
Tragically, children with this disease do not live past the age of 13.
It's not even a question of maybe.
They simply don't live past 13.
Like most diseases, both boys and girls are equally vulnerable to being born with it.
The only good news is that it's much rarer than most other diseases.
Only about 1 in every 4 million babies will be born with the Benjamin Button disease.
It's a mistake in the LMNA gene which causes it to make an improper protein.
The cells use the protein and they break down much easier than they would normally.
With all these cells breaking down, children begin to age at a shocking rate.
Unfortunately for those born with Benjamin Button disease, there are no symptoms right
away.
They won't begin showing signs of the disease until later on in their first year of life.
They'll start growing an extremely large head, their voice will be high pitched, veins start
bulging out of their body, and sometimes their eyes get so big that they can't close them
all the way.
This is not as cute as the movie made it out to be.
It's absolutely horrific, and as these children get older they even develop diseases usually
only seen in people older than 50, ultimately dying of a heart attack or stroke by the age
of… yup, 13.
There is an immense need for research into this disease.
Finding a cure for Progeria will not only help these poor children, but may provide
the solution for treating millions of adults with heart disease and strokes associated
with naturally getting older.
6: Frog Baby A woman from Zimbabwe recently gave birth
to a frog monster.
As ridiculous as this sounds, it's 100% true.
As reported by The Daily Mail, Precious Nyathi from a small village in the northwest of Zimbabwe
was eight months pregnant when she unexpectedly went into labor.
This woman was 36 years old and otherwise pretty healthy.
But rather than giving birth to a normal baby, she pushed out what villagers could only describe
as a frog-like monster.
The baby unfortunately died in the hospital – which isn't a huge surprise considering
it was literally a frog.
The village elder then ordered the woman to burn the creature in front of the other residents
of the village, probably for reasons of a paranoid and superstitious nature.
So far, nobody has offered a medical explanation for the unbelievable birth.
Nobody's quite sure how she carried a tiny creature that resembled a frog in her stomach
for eight months.
And with the remains of the frog mutant baby thing burned, probably to prevent some kind
of curse, scientists will never know the answers.
Maybe she kissed a frog eight months before looking for her prince?
What do you think?
5: Lobster Hands Lobster hands is a strange medical condition,
also known as split hand/foot malformation.
This limb abnormality is always present from birth.
The physical attributes of lobster hands are exactly what they sound like: a person’s
hands look like lobster claws!
Lobster hands can also be lobster feet.
A person is born with fingers or toes missing, making their hands shaped like claws.
They will also have some strange webbing between the few toes and fingers they do have.
Split hand/foot malformation varies in severity.
The most famous cases of lobster claw involve a person’s third finger being replaced by
a sort of cleft that tapers towards the wrist, effectively cutting a person’s hand or foot
into two parts.
Nobody has narrowed down the exact cause of lobster hands yet – and unfortunately, there
is no cure!
People born with this condition are forced to suffer as lobster mutants for the rest
of their lives, seeing as they can’t grow their missing digits.
4: Mermaid Syndrome Mermaid syndrome, medically known as sirenomelia,
is one of the more extreme rare conditions a person can be born with.
It’s actually a rare congenital developmental disorder that consists of anomalies of the
lower limbs and lower spine.
People who are born with mermaid syndrome suffer from a partial or full fusion of their
legs, making them look like real life mermaids.
It’s estimated that 1 in every 60,000 to 100,000 births are born with sirenomelia.
And while it might be kind of interesting to be born a mermaid, the side effects are
significantly more serious.
People with mermaid syndrome often experience malformations and abnormalities inside of
them, like in their gastrointestinal tracts.
Additionally, they could have underdevelopment of both of their kidneys.
Infants born with mermaid syndrome can have one or both feet rotated in the wrong direction.
According to a report prepared in part by the University of Chicago Pritzker School
of Medicine, mermaid syndrome is often fatal in the first year of life.
But lucky for some, they are able to live all the way into adulthood.
The only bummer is that mermaid syndrome doesn’t help you swim.
3: Fish Odor Syndrome Fish odor syndrome is one of the weirdest
syndromes that a person can be born with.
It is a genetic disease, with one main symptom: emitting a disgusting fish odor.
You literally stink like rotten fish.
It's an offensive body odor that you can't even cover up with the best deodorant because
the rotting fish smell is due to excretion that comes out of your sweat.
You basically sweat fish slime.
Not only that, but the excretion comes out of your breath and urine too.
This means your toilet is going to stink and you can't breathe on anyone!
The source of all this stench comes from trimethylaminuria, or TMA, and fish odor syndrome itself is a
result of a mutation in your FMO3 gene.
Most cases of people having trimethylaminuria appear to be inherited in an autosomal recessive
pattern, meaning both copies of the gene in each cell have mutations.
The parents of an individual with an autosomal recessive condition often each carry one copy
of the mutated gene, but usually don’t show signs and symptoms.
Carriers of an FMO3 mutation, however, may experience mild symptoms of trimethylaminuria
or have temporary incidents of fish-like body odor.
The only good news with fish odor syndrome is that people don't often have it for life.
These symptoms are usually seen in infants and in healthy adult women when they begin
menstruation.
It's actually pretty easy to fix for older women, by using acid lotions and soaps to
remove the secretion coming out of their skin or by switching to a better diet.
2: Real-Life Gargoyle There is a rare inherited connective tissue
disorder that can turn a person into a gargoyle.
The only bad news is that they don't sprout wings and it's actually quite painful.
Gargoyle syndrome, known in reality as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, can be characterized
by an abnormal development of bone in places inside the human body where bone is not meant
to grow.
The best examples of this are ligaments, skeletal muscles, and tendons.
The onset of this disorder creates bones in places that are supposed to be soft and squishy!
This is what turns you into a gargoyle!
The skeletal muscles and soft connective tissue inside a person's body literally go through
a metamorphosis in which they turn into rigid bone.
Their joints lock in place and movement becomes impossible.
People who suffer from the gargoyle disease are even more prone to suffering from other
skeletal malformations.
Episodic flare ups can be common, normally during childhood.
There is no cure for turning into a human gargoyle and it generally only gets worse
and worse until a person is 100% immobilized and in constant, agonizing pain.
1: Fingers & Toes A baby has been born with 31 fingers and toes.
And no, they aren’t part of the X-Men!
In the village of Zhongping, China, a migrant worker gave birth to a child suffering from
a severe case of polydactyly, which causes extra appendages to be born on a person.
The child has 15 fingers on each hand.
The kicker?
He has no thumbs!
The kid only has fingers.
But who needs thumbs with fifteen fingers?
The kid also has 16 toes.
Of course, this kind of thing isn’t normal.
The poor baby will need to have three corrective surgeries to get rid of the extra toes before
he can properly walk.
What’s really interesting in this case is that the child’s mother also has extra digits.
She has an extra finger on each of her hands, suggesting the condition is indeed hereditary.
According to Doctor Xu Jihai, the operation will involve cutting off each extra finger
and toe, then reshaping the remaining digits to form something relatively normal.
There are risks of damaging bones, joints, skin, and critical veins, but hopefully the
infant will come out on the other side okay.
Which of these conditions is the most horrifying?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thanks for watching!
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