Alex Buscemi
The human body is one of the most complex and fascinating machines ever studied, yet there’s still so much we don’t understand.
Despite incredible advancements in medical science, doctors and researchers continue to stumble upon biological mysteries that remain unsolved.
In a recent thread on Reddit, u/Immediate_Hair_3393 asked doctors to reveal some of the most confounding among these mysteries.
From the true purpose of yawning to the exact mechanism behind anesthesia, there are countless questions that modern medicine is still trying to crack.
It’s easy to assume that science has all the answers, but as this list proves, the human body remains a puzzle in many ways.
These fascinating insights from doctors and researchers highlight just how much we still have to learn about our own bodies.
Some of these may be solved in the future, but for now, they serve as a reminder that medicine is an ever-evolving field.
1.
How basically any of medical science works in relation to women and their bodies – almost all the data is based on men, and a lot of it almost exclusively.
2.
One of the frustrating, but not so secret things in medicine is that racial differences exist and they can’t be discussed in today’s climate.
There are differences in drug efficacy, growth, disease susceptibility or immunity—just about everything.
It’s preventing personalized treatments. AI can now pretty accurately guess someone’s race and sex from a single view chest X-ray, so things may change.
People always think of this as a negative, but in reality, it should be approached like family history being super relevant for cancer or heart disease surveillance.
3.
I’m an anesthesiologist. We still don’t really know why inhaled volatile anesthetics like sevoflurane, the principal anesthetic agent used to maintain general anesthesia, work. We kind of have an idea of maybe how it happens, but really, we don’t know.
It’s commonly said in my field that whoever figures this out will win the next Nobel Prize in Medicine.
4.
One of the few absolutes in medical science is that nobody born blind has ever developed schizophrenia.
5.
The Gut Microbiome: While it’s well-known that the gut plays a huge role in digestion, researchers are discovering just how much our gut bacteria affect other parts of our health, like mood, immunity, and even brain function.
6.
It’s not cancer. It’s cancers, and every specialized and stem cell (undifferentiated pluripotent cell) is at risk of mutating into something that doesn’t stop multiplying.
The cancer of a specialized gland cell is called adenocarcinoma.
The cancer of a skin cell is called squamous cell carcinoma.
The cancer of a melanocyte is melanoma, and so on.
So anytime someone says, “they’re hiding the cure for cancer,” they are being magnificently ignorant.
7.
I had a lecturer at medical school say, “Half of medicine is made up, we just don’t know which half.”
8.
OBGYN here: We still don’t know exactly what makes labor start. We know all about the mechanics and physiology, but we don’t know what makes the average uterus say it’s “go time.”
9.
One I didn’t see mentioned: we apparently don’t know precisely *how* our bodies can distinguish gas from poop.
We have some ideas, we know there are a ton of nerve endings in the area, but the precise mechanism of our bodies telling our brains, “This is a fart, let loose,” isn’t really understood.
What blows my mind is that it’s distinct enough that we even pass gas while asleep. That difference must be wired deep!
10.
Not a doctor, but the amount of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I got from doctors when I asked questions during my treatment for breast cancer was astounding.
That’s not to imply they were useless or didn’t know what they were doing, I just asked a lot of questions.
Me: Why do I need to take Claritin before chemo?
Nurse: It helps with bone pain.
Me: Oh, that’s interesting, why is that?
Nurse: Nobody knows!Me: What’s the cording I’m experiencing in my arm following my mastectomy?
Physical Therapist: Nobody actually knows what it’s made of or where it comes from!Me: Why am I suddenly unable to eat gluten following my cancer treatment?
Gastro Doc: Trauma, probably?Having cancer really made it clear to me that so much of the human body is still a mystery!
11.
Allergies, specifically food allergies. And why do adults develop them after never reacting to them before?
12.
What causes endometriosis and how do you treat it effectively?
The leading theory is “retrograde menstruation,” which occurs in 80-90% of women. Ok… so why do 80-90% of women not have endometriosis?
There’s clearly something else going on that we don’t know.
Also, the only way to remove or get rid of endometriosis is through surgery. But there is a high rate of recurrence after surgery. Some women undergo multiple surgeries for it.
13.
Had a pathologist tell me that the interesting part of his job wasn’t finding out how someone died, it was seeing everything that can be wrong with someone—so many life-threatening or life-altering, horrible things that a person can have going on and still be alive.
A good friend died of pneumonia (he was too busy at work, couldn’t afford to take time off). He kept using OTC meds for the symptoms.
He died unattended, so the coroner had to get involved. They did an autopsy. His body had cancer in three different places. He never stopped.
Dude was old-time tough.
14.
Not MD but PhD. Right now, we are working on the connection between our intestinal microbiome and neuropsychiatric disease and brain aging.
For instance, people with inflammatory bowel disease are more likely to develop dementia and experience co-morbid anxiety and depression, but we don’t know why.
15.
Doctor here. Off the top of my head, here are a few deceptively big ones:
1) We still aren’t exactly sure how anesthesia works. We just know it causes certain effects, and they are useful, so we use it.
2) Psychiatry is still shockingly infantile in our understanding of human disorders. It’s constantly in a state of flux, we don’t understand a lot about the meds we currently use, and the diagnostic criteria for disorders still change as we realize, “Hey, maybe all these behaviors aren’t the same source disorder.”
3) Neurology is still learning a lot. It’s further along than psychiatry because you can observe more objective findings in neuro, but we still struggle a lot with how brains function.
4) Immunology. Don’t even ask me, because no one knows really.
5) Yawns. Still guessing on why that happens too. There are some theories, but that’s the best we got.
16.
The placenta is the only human organ grown for a specific purpose and then discarded when it is no longer needed.
17.
Why our brain doesn’t use its stem cells to heal itself.
18.
“Unexplained infertility” is the actual name of an actual diagnosis given to my wife and me.
According to every test, based on what modern medical science knows about fertility, we’re fine. We *should* be able to conceive.
We probably even would be able to conceive, either of us, with different partners. But no one knows why the two of us can’t, *together*.
And it happens to far more couples than anyone talks about. But the only diagnosis we all get is “unexplained infertility.”
19.
I’m a derm. We don’t know what exactly causes itching, like the molecular pathways for it.
That’s why it can be so hard to find a good treatment when a patient comes in for itchy skin.
20.
Not a doctor, but I study cell and molecular biology. The immune system is wildly complex, and right now, it feels as though we’re staring down into Mariana’s Trench.
21.
Rabies pathology.
Alzheimer’s etiology.
Encephalitis lethargica/chronic fatigue syndrome.
22.
Apparently, we know next to nothing about fibroids, which like 75% of women have at some point in their lives.
That’s great, considering that the largest one removed was 100 lbs—so not exactly a minor issue.
There are theories about different hormones and what things put you at higher risk, but aside from having surgery to remove existing ones, there is basically no information on what you can do to prevent them from coming back.
23.
I’m a sleep specialist.
While we do have some good theories about some of the functions of REM as far as how it affects the brain and health, we still don’t fully understand the purpose of dreaming.
Like, why do we dream at all, and why do dreams have a narrative instead of random incomprehensible imagery?
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to ever be solved.
24.
I’m a nurse, not a doctor, but in school, I learned that when in vitro fertilization was being pioneered, scientists were unable to create an embryo from the combination of sperm and egg.
It wasn’t until they added female secretions in that they were able to produce viable embryos, and they don’t know what role those secretions play in the process.
This was about 15 years ago, so if anyone has new information on the topic, I’d love to hear it!
25.
We don’t know the precise mechanism by which B12 deficiency causes nerve damage.
We know that it happens, but not why.
Many medical things are like that—easily observed and proven cause and effect, but complex and unclear mechanisms.
Much of biology is still a black box to us. Neurological stuff in particular is full of this—lots of “we definitely know damage here causes effect XYZ, but not why.”
26.
The brain, and especially how it governs our actions and personality.
Why do some people commit crimes like murder despite knowing the consequences, while others would never do such things?
Why do some people require multiple chances for “rehabilitation,” while others live their entire lives “right”?
We don’t know the answers.
It annoys me to no end when some people chime in and claim, “Everyone can be rehabilitated,” as if we actually know what that even means and how it works.
27.
The biggest one I want solved:
How do we remember things?
How does our memory work?
Some headway has been made at MIT, but it hasn’t been completely cracked yet.
28.
The “uncanny valley” fear.
Why are humans unnerved and/or afraid of things that sound like, mimic, look like, or act like humans but aren’t human?
Think of seeing human-shaped shadows, dolls, robots, animals walking on two legs vs. their usual four, AI…
It’s fascinating how we all have that feeling about some of the same things.
29.
I have a very niche answer.
We don’t know what is supposed to naturally bind to the area that benzodiazepines work at.
Benzodiazepines (BZD) are medications like Xanax and Valium. They produce anti-anxiety effects.
They have a very distinct chemical shape to fit into the BZD site in a group of five proteins.
But we don’t know what is supposed to go there.
Many medications are analogs of naturally binding molecules that we copy and then use to create an effect.
The BZD site is for something—we just don’t know what.
30.
Yawning.
We still don’t know exactly why we do it.
There are theories—temperature regulation, social bonding, oxygen intake—but nothing definitive.
It’s wild to think that something as basic as yawning is still a mystery.
Read more: 30 Unusual And Interesting Maps That Will Change Your Perspective On Cartography