- There's a lot that can affect the human body,
but even science can't explain
the strangest things that happen.
(apprehensive music)
Anything can happen to our bodies
on both a mental and physical level,
and while science can diagnose a lot of it,
there remains a list of very rare and strange ailments
that remain unexplained.
If you ever got these, there would be no help for you,
because although we have a name for them
and what they cause,
we have yet to explain why they occur.
So here are 10 bizarre diseases
science can't explain, part two.
Number one is sudden infant death syndrome.
Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS
is highly feared by parents of newborns,
since it can take life away so quickly,
and without any noticeable warning.
This syndrome is given as a cause of death
when a newborn infant dies without any evidence
of smothering or choking,
and an autopsy cannot provide any further explanation.
SIDS is also known as crib death,
since it usually happens when the child is sleeping.
It's the cause of around 15,000 deaths yearly,
and continues to be the leading cause of death
in babies between one month old and one year old.
Making it worse is that for no known reason,
the majority of SIDS cases occur when an infant
is between two and four months of age.
Since science has yet to explain why these infants die,
it makes it impossible to prevent,
making SIDS a continued fear of parents
of newborn children everywhere,
as it could strike at any moment.
Number two is exploding head syndrome.
Despite its name, exploding head syndrome
does not actually cause heads to literally explode.
That would be insane.
Instead, it's a sleep disorder
classified as parasomnia, which causes you
to have loud, auditory hallucinations in your mind
when you're about to fall asleep or wake up.
Some of the noises that have been reported
of those who suffer from this include
bomb explosions, gun shots, firecrackers,
thunder claps and loud roars.
This can be extremely distressing to those
who have been affected by it,
and can trigger body reactions from the stress
and anxiety that it causes.
It's also been known to cause heart palpitations
and tachycardia, or rapid beating of the heart
from the shock of the experience.
Now there is no actual ear pain involved
from the loudness of the sounds,
which points towards it being something to do
with the brain rather than the ears,
but scientists don't know how or why it happens,
but they think it might have something to do with stress,
improper sleep or more serious brain issues.
If you've ever heard very loud noises in your head
before you wake or before you go to sleep,
consult a doctor immediately,
although, unfortunately, the most that they
could do for you is simply diagnose it.
Number three is Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
Also known as micropsia, Alice in Wonderland syndrome
was named after Dr. John Todd in 1955,
who likened it to the children's story by Lewis Carroll.
If you're unfamiliar, the story involves Alice
who at one point eats mystery food and a mystery drink
labeled Eat Me and Drink Me, which causes her to grow
and shrink drastically.
Her change in size shifted her perspective,
and ordinary things became unusually big or small.
This is exactly what happens if you get micropsia.
You'll experience periods of visual distortion
which causes your eyesight to shrink things
within your vision, sort of like looking the wrong way
through binoculars.
In addition to vision issues,
some who experience this syndrome
have lost their sense of time
and perceive events as if they are moving in slow-motion.
This odd syndrome has a large variety of possible causes
and associations with things like migraines,
seizures, brain trauma and drug use,
but unfortunately, there is no determined cause for it,
leaving researchers completely stumped.
Number four is cyclical vomiting.
People with this issue will vomit
and experience extreme nausea for a certain period of time,
ranging from hours to even days.
After an episode of cyclical vomiting,
the symptoms will disappear for weeks and months,
but they can reoccur for years and even decades.
The strange bit is that while these symptoms
are not uncommon for those with a flu or stomach illness,
cyclical vomiting occurs for no apparent reason.
One day, you'll be completely fine,
and the next, you'll be spending an entire day
bent over a bucket or a toilet bowl.
Obviously, this can really mess with a person,
since sufferers are sometimes constrained
to their beds for days trying to simply ride it out,
and nobody is safe, as this syndrome affects
all ages and is dangerous as the frequent vomiting
is extremely taxing on your body,
and can lead to severe dehydration.
Number five is Brainered diarrhea.
This affliction involves mysterious outbreaks
of intense diarrhea, the first of which
occurred in Brainered, Minnesota in 1983.
The Brainered outbreak affected 122 people,
and caused them to sit through 10 to 20 sessions
of diarrhea every day, lasting for around four weeks.
The symptoms include gas, abdominal cramps,
fatigue and weight loss, and most disturbingly,
can last between two months to three years.
There is no treatment for the condition,
but it will eventually go away without any help.
Only seven known outbreaks have been reported since 1983,
with six being in the United States,
and one outbreak on a South American cruise ship.
Elderly are the most commonly affected,
but there have been several cases of children
and young adults contracting it.
Scientists are not sure why this outbreak happens,
but they do know that it tends to appear
in about 50 to 100 people every three years,
possibly due to some sort of bacteria
or parasite outbreak.
Well, here's hoping that you have good odds.
Number six is twentieth-century disease.
Twentieth-century disease, known more formally
as multiple chemical sensitivity, or MCS,
is a negative reaction caused by exposure
to common chemicals used in modern products.
Sufferers experience symptoms like nausea,
vertigo, anxiety, fatigue,
headache, difficulty breathing and inflammation
when encountering certain substances.
The problem chemicals are incorporated into products
like plastics, paint fumes, petroleum,
synthetic fabrics and scented items just to name a few.
But the worst part is that there is no confirmed answer
as to why this chronic medical condition exists,
and for some reason symptoms only present
when the subject is aware of their exposure
to harmful chemicals.
Tests involving placebos have shown that patients
will still display symptoms
when there's no physical exposure,
meaning that there is likely a psychological factor.
MCS can also be quite difficult to diagnose,
since the symptoms involved are apparent
in many other illnesses, and the environmental triggers
are hard to single out,
because they're so commonly found everywhere.
Number seven is pica.
Pica disorder has an extremely strange effect
on those who develop it.
They begin craving items that bear no nutritional value,
and that are not traditionally eaten,
or even edible, for that matter.
If you get pica, you'll start to develop
an intense appetite for things like clay, dirt,
plaster, paint, ice, hair, chalk and metal,
just to name some.
Much like an episode of My Strange Addiction,
people with pica disease will eat all sorts
of unhealthy and disgusting things
because they actually want to eat them.
That's right, imagine intensely desiring
to eat plaster off of your wall, or couch cushion filling.
It mainly seems to affect pregnant women,
young kids and people with developmental disabilities.
However, doctors have no knowledge
of the potential causes for pica,
but there is some speculation around it being
the body's reaction to having a mineral deficiency.
Interestingly, the name for pica is actually
the Latin word for magpie, which is a bird
that seems to eat just about anything that it comes across.
Number eight is bleeding calf syndrome.
Bleeding calf syndrome is a disease
that very fortunately does not affect humans,
but does spell a gruesome end for innocent calves.
Calves that get this horrible syndrome
will bleed profusely from their nose, ears and skin.
Like something out of a horror movie,
calves who get this will have blood seeping
from every orifice, and will eventually bleed to death.
Once the symptoms start there's little that can be done
to treat it, and the calves will usually die
after a couple of days.
It was first recorded in the United Kingdom in 2009,
and so far scientists know that the bleeding
is caused by the destruction of the calves' bone marrow.
Bone marrow is responsible for creating platelets
which help clot your blood and prevent it
from leaving your body.
Whatever is eating away at their bone marrow
is a mystery, but it does present a threat to the species,
with a 95% mortality rate and a current death toll
of over 2,000.
Let's hope that this does not transfer to humans.
Number nine is moebius syndrome.
Moebius syndrome is an odd disease
that affects the facial muscles, paralyzing them.
If you got this, you'd lose the ability
to perform even the simplest facial actions,
like blinking, smiling, frowning, squinting
or even looking side-to-side.
This can cause facial structures to change and droop,
and it can cause people to think
that they're unfriendly or mentally disabled.
People with this syndrome have delayed speech
due to difficulty in moving their lips and tongue,
but with therapy, most can reach a level of speech
that is understandable by others.
However, as it progresses it causes
much more serious problems,
including difficulty breathing and swallowing.
Moebius syndrome is a genetic disease
that can be inherited, but most commonly and scarily
occurs at random, with no history of the disease
in the family.
This causes extreme difficulty when researching it,
since it does not follow much of a pattern,
but there is speculation that it forms
as part of an environmental factor or genetic defect.
And number 10 is Morgellons disease.
Morgellons disease is an awful affliction
that affects the mind, and leads its sufferers
to believe that they are being bit or stung
all over their bodies by something.
People who suffer from this
believe that there are parasites
all over their face and body.
Another strange symptom involves reports
of strange fibers protruding from the skin
which is made up of cotton.
This disease will cause you to scratch and peel away
at your skin, leaving large sores all over your body.
The disease has presented itself in children
as young as two years old,
but most commonly affects middle-aged white women.
Surprisingly, Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell
diagnosed herself as suffering
from Morgellons Disease in 2010.
While it's a serious affliction,
not much is known or understood about the disease,
which makes it even scarier to get.
So, those were the 10 most bizarre diseases
that science has yet to explain.
So today's question is,
do you know of another bizarre disease
that you've either heard of or someone that you know
has got, that deserves to be on this list?
As always, leave your response below,
because I'll be reading through them
and I'll be pinning the best one to the top.
Thank you very much for coming by today.
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I'll see you then.