37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

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

#1

You can sometimes actually feel your organs sliding back into place in the days after giving birth.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: FionnaAndCake

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

#2

The human body produces about a liter of mucus every single day. Most of it you just swallow without realizing.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: midnightmusee_, Wavebreak Media

#3

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Visual-Sand3718, user26738526

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

Your belly button is basically just a scar where they unplugged you from the mothership.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: No_Metal2622, Anastasia Kazakova

#5

You can have extra little spleens throughout your body. In pathology we call them “spleenlets.”.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: piangere, nadezdagorosko

#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…. 🤪.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: itxSMG, freepik

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

A human gut roughly contains 38 trillion bacteria.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: xxTonyTonyxx, freepik

#8

Most smells your body “makes” are secondarily made by creatures living on you and inside you .

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Great_Apez, freepik

#9

So apparently when you have scurvy, all you old wounds begin to open up again.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Chill_Capybara_09, chormail

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

Your body odor is the farts of bacteria. All those little critters are just farting on you 24/7.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: ShadyMyLady, CDC

#11

The fact that our skin is basically a full time shedding factory.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Jinxybug, El S

#12

Your body contains more bacteria cells than human cells.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: sunbearimon, National Cancer Institute

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

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💀.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: MsDevilDog, Frank Flores

#14

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’.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: sunny_spot_girl, Elen Sher

#15

Every time you kiss someone you’re swapping about 80 million bacteria. Your mouth is basically a petri dish.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: AfterHours_Babe, Getty Images

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

Your body is constantly covered in tiny microorganisms, and most of them are actually helping keep you alive.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: tylo884r, Colin + Meg

#17

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: RobotVac_Tester_USA, camilo jimenez

#18

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Kitchen_Current, Molly the Cat

#19

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: LeGama, Edu Bastidas

#20

You can puke out through your nose and sinuses.

It s***s, like, a lot.

F**k you influenza.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: MothMeep7, Getty Images

#21

Your b******e can stretch to about 7 inches. Rats only require 1.5 inches to squeeze into a space.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: KillerCritter1312, Joshua J. Cotten

#22

Most of your neurotransmitters are produced by the bacteria in your gut, not your brain.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: dignan2002, Curated Lifestyle

#23

Amniotic fluid is partially fetal urine and, once the gut has formed, the fetus will be constantly drinking and excreting further fluid.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: flyforpennies, Getty Images

#24

There’s a spooky skeleton inside.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: KittenPics, chris robert

#25

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 🙃.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: PhotoPrimary7801, senivpetro

#26

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: jabsaw2112, jcomp

#27

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Amazing_Excuse_3860, atlascompany

#28

Not disgusting but interesting, your tongue rests on the roof of your mouth.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: mypoopscaresflysaway, cookie_studio

#29

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.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: Candid_Memory_7204, bokodi

#30

Your body is full of p*o and pee and skeletons right now.

37 Unsettling Facts About The Human Body You May Wish You Never Learned

Image source: WavishingWickWude, gpointstudio

#31

Lip skin is the same skin as booty hole skin.

Image source: Putrid_Ingenuity_546

#32

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.

Image source: BW1818

#33

How dirty the pointer, middle and ring finger can get.

Image source: MongooseSimple8638

#34

Eyelash mites.

Image source: LeftToaster

#35

Tonsil stones.

Image source: highstreetcompton

#36

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.

Image source: Exotic_Secretary8960