OUR QUIRKY BODY QUIRKS

Many signs on the outside of the body indicate health conditions within the body. For example, a particular pattern in fingerprints can indicate Alzheimer's disease. Most of us don't know these outward signs, yet we would be healthier if we did.
Medical science calls them "body quirks". They are associations between physical features and health conditions that strangely exist, but seemingly make no sense. A body quirk is not a symptom or a cause of a disease. Rather, it is a marker, a signpost, a clinical clue. It is as if the body's visible exterior is saying to the doctor: "Look closely on the outside and you'll find out about something on the inside".
1) Earlobe crease. A deep, vertical crease in the human earlobe is not merely a meaningless hereditary characteristic. Instead, it can be an important predictor of heart disease. And a ridged earlobe appears more frequently in people who have heart disease than in people who do not.
2) "Hard" earlobes. It has also been found that earlobe calcification can suggest the existence of Addison's disease. Addison's disease is a serious and gradually deteriorating condition occurring when the adrenal cortex (the outer layer of the adrenal glands located just above each kidney) fails to produce enough hormones to meet the body's needs. In fact, Addison's disease is odd in itself. Long thought to be caused by tuberculosis or a fungal infection, it is now believed to be idiopathic--a disease of unknown cause.
3) Moon-shaped face. Another quirk involves
Cushing's disease. This is the opposite of Addison's disease. Cushing's disease involves the over production of adrenal hormones. Doctors note that in Cushing's disease, the patient most often manifests a moon-shaped face. They can also exhibit a protuberant belly and extremely thin arms and legs.
4) Abnormal thumb. If the thumb has an abnormality
such that it moves more like fingers than in the proper, opposing manner, this may indicate the existence of a hole in the heart. Specifically, this hole will be located between the heart's left and right chambers.
5) Spinal curvature, concavities of the breastbone,
or an arched palate. These body quirks may all be outward signs of a prolapse of the mitral valve of the heart. This coronary condition causes the valve to sag, although usually not dangerously. Indeed, the mitral valve is itself strange in form if not in function. Tucked away, utterly hidden, deep within the heart's innermost sanctum between the left chamber and the left ventricle, the mitral valve resembles a bishop's miter--the high, ceremonial headpiece from which it gets its name.
6) Fingerprints. The skin, the body's largest, most
sensitive, and most visible organ, possesses the most body quirks by far. Fingerprints, the body's unique "skin carvings", consist of three basic patterns: Loops, arches, and whorls. A great abundance of loops appears with significant frequency in Alzheimer's disease sufferers.
7) Skin "tags". Small excess of skin found anywhere
on the body, called skin "tags", may signify the existence of colon polyps. Colon polyps can be a precursor of colon cancer.
8) Skin ulcers. According to recent studies, large
skin ulcers can indicate inflammatory bowel disease.
9) Skin nodules. Nodules, especially on the legs, along with tiny canker sores of the mouth, eye inflammation, and arthritis can together indicate ulcerative colitis.
10) Skin rashes. Rashes are always intriguing from the standpoint of their quirkiness. But there is only one skin rash that migrates while at the same time ulcerates. It is a unique rash that invariably indicates to doctors the existence of glucagonoma. This is an endocrine tumor of the pancreas which is located just under the stomach.
11) Cafe au lait spots. The so-called cafe au lait spots, large, brown-pigmented birthmarks, often point to the existence of Albright's disease. In Albright's disease, cysts form on the bones. The birthmarks, especially if they are smooth-edged, appear directly above the cysts. It has been said that in Albright's disease, birthmarks are to the doctor what the divining rod is to the water dowser.
12) Birthmarks. If there are many large and smooth-edged birthmarks, research suggests that this may indicate the earliest stages of neurofibromatosis. Otherwise known as von Recklinghausen's disease and more popularly (but falsely) known as "the Elephant Man's disease", it is characterized by a variety of brain lesions, bone cysts, and tumors forming around the nerves (the neurofibromata). The first tumors emerge from under and on the skin in children between nine and twelve years of age. About one person in 3000 suffers from this disease to varying degrees. It is genetically-based and there is no treatment other than surgery. Doctors report that they often find the birthmarks without the disease, but they almost never find the disease without the birthmarks.
Why do we have body quirks? That's unknown. Conventional wisdom and common sense tell us that such body parts as earlobes should have nothing at all to do with distant body parts such as the heart. But they do.
Body quirks reveal many unexpected body relationships and suggest we still have to learn much more about the inter-relatedness of our many body parts and processes.

 

 

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