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As we know, the heart-slowing reflex triggered by states of high arousal, such as fear, pain, or distress, is a core feature of vasovagal fainting in human beings. Alarm bradycardia has protected animals across all classes of vertebrates, and persists in us today precisely because its protective power is so deeply embedded into the autonomic nervous system, which has been passed down from our ancient water-dwelling ancestors. This hypothesis connects the acutely slowing heart of a hunted fish in the water to a human fainter in the ER.
Happens Consciously / Subconsciously / Unconsciously
To create instant lordosis (the posture, if not the hormonal reflex), you can go to your closet and put on a pair of high heels. Whether stilettos or wedges, high heels exaggerate the lower back’s normal lordosis. If we didn’t compensate by tipping out our buttocks and arching that lower spine, we would topple over. Maybe the forced, if artificial, lordosis is what’s enduringly attractive about high heels—and why wearing them both looks and feels sexy.
Fanaticism is a Disease
Take the 1998 soccer World Cup. England and Argentina had clawed their way up the ladder and were facing off for the chance to compete against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals. While international soccer rivalries are always fierce, this pairing had special resonance for the fans. Sixteen years earlier, the two countries had gone to war over the Falkland Islands. Although Britain officially won the skirmish, many Argentines refused to acknowledge defeat. Every time the two teams subsequently met on the soccer pitch, it turned into a grudge match. This game (which featured a young David Beckham, fouling out after kicking another player in full view of the ref) ended in a tie. The winner would be decided by a penalty kick shoot-out.
One by one, the players lined up in front of the goalie to take their shots. The score had reached Argentina 4, England 3 when the English player David Batty jogged onto the field. He took a few short sharp strides toward the ball … made contact … and sent it soaring. But between Batty’s Puma cleats and the expanse of the goalposts, the ball met the gloved fingers of goalkeeper Carlos Roa—and the winner was Argentina.
The Argentine fans erupted in relieved, joyful mayhem. But English fans watching on TVs in pubs back home gaped in stunned horror. And that day heart attacks across the United Kingdom increased by more than 25 percent.
Am I Infected?
He suggested that the worms might be “leaking” a hormone into the bloodstreams of the rodents, causing them to eat more in order to satisfy the chemistry of the parasite.
And, indeed, infections of many kinds influence appetite. Tapeworms make you hungry. Certain viruses put you off your feed. In fact, appetite is one of the first things doctors ask patients about when we’re taking a medical history, because it’s one of the most sensitive markers of infection. These facts made me consider more seriously the real possibility that microbial invaders might manipulate what, how, and when we eat.
That's The Point
What veterinarians know—and physicians might not—is that flu viruses prowl many animal populations besides pigs and birds. Specific strains of dog, whale, mink, and seal flu have all been identified. Given the opportunity, they could blend with the human strain. Although these volatile viruses haven’t, as of this writing, crossed over into human populations, they are being closely tracked by veterinary epidemiologists.
The 2009 swine flu outbreak was but the latest wave in an ocean of diseases emerging from the jungle, the factory farm, the beach, the backyard bird feeder … perhaps even the doghouse and the litter box. The avian flu scare of 2005, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) panic of 2003, the monkeypox eruption the same year, the Ebola worry of 1996, the mad cow terror in Great Britain in the late 1980s—exotic zoonoses are nothing new. Think of a big, infectious killer and it’s probably zoonotic, spread or harbored by other animals. Malaria. Yellow fever. HIV. Rabies. Lyme disease. Toxoplasmosis. Salmonella. E. coli. These all started in animals and then jumped into our species. Some spread to us via insects like fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes. Others move around in feces and meat. In some cases, the pathogens leave their animal reservoir, mutate, and evolve into bespoke superbugs especially tailored for human-to-human spread.
The E. coli–tainted fresh baby spinach that killed three North Americans and sickened more than two hundred in 2006 was traced to the feces of wild pigs in the fields. One of the world’s worst outbreaks of the eerily named Q fever struck the Netherlands in the late 2000s.‡ Thirteen people died and thousands fell ill from the bacterial infection that spread to humans from infected goats on nearby farms.
Argh Teenagers!
We often call adolescence the teenage years, for the obvious reason that the transition roughly corresponds with that segment of a human life span. In other animals, the gradual shift from child to adult can last anywhere from about a week for a housefly to fifteen years for an elephant. For zebra finches, it lasts about two months, starting forty days after they hatch. In vervet monkeys, the journey from their mother’s side to motherhood (or fatherhood) happens over four years. Even lowly, single-celled paramecia have an adolescent phase—a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it fifteen to twenty-four hours in which their cell nucleus and plasm change as well as, believe it or not, their behavior.
Whip Me Off
As a cardiologist, I was extremely interested to learn that, beyond altering blood chemicals, pain that is self-inflicted can sometimes affect the heart itself. Researchers in Massachusetts outfitted a group of rhesus monkeys known to be self-biters with tiny vests housing heart-rate monitors the scientists could check with a remote control. They found that when the monkeys naturally nibbled at their unfamiliar new ensembles, their hearts showed no significant spike or drop. But when the monkeys bit themselves, their heart rates were markedly elevated for thirty seconds before the behavior, then plunged dramatically the instant their teeth hit fur. A precipitous drop in heart rate—especially one that comes suddenly after it’s been elevated by thrill or fear—can create the feeling of calm. Like the self-biting rhesus monkeys, cutters (half-fearfully, half-excitedly) anticipating the moment when the blade hits their skin may be experiencing a mild tachycardia (increased heart rate), followed by a sudden, calming drop once the skin is broken and the blood flows.
Similarities Between Species in That Picture
But certain victims of sudden cardiac death have no previously identified heart problems. In these otherwise healthy patients, a massive emotional jolt alone converts the cardiac rhythm from safe and steady to malignant and deadly. Startled, terrified, horrified, or aggrieved, these patients spew stress hormones, including adrenaline, from their highly activated central nervous systems. These catecholamines gush into the bloodstream. Like a chemical cavalry they appear on the scene, ready to boost strength and stamina to aid an escape. But instead of rescuing the patient, this neuroendocrine burst may rupture plaque deposits, lodge a blocking clot in an artery, and cause a fatal heart attack. It might trigger an extra beat at just the wrong moment and send the heart into VT. And in huge amounts and all at once, the chemicals themselves can be enough to poison muscles, including some of the two billion heart muscle cells in a human ventricle. In these patients, the weapon is essentially the reactive nervous system itself, fully loaded with dangerous catecholamines, waiting for terror to pull the trigger.
It's Pleasurable For Everyone
After examining the similar function and physiology of erections, ejaculations, and orgasms in many species, it’s impossible not to postulate that the feelings are also shared. Sensations of orgasm may reward a marine flatworm’s multiple penises as profoundly as they pulse through a human male’s single member. The “shudder” that a primatologist observed “cours[ing] through” a female siamang’s “entire body” after her genitals were licked by a male may have feelings in common with the “violet flannel, then the sharpness” of the poet Molly Peacock’s description of an orgasm. The open-mouthed grimace of a lion climaxing could indicate a roar-gasm; the squeals of a mating tortoise, an expression of pleasure.
Remarkable Third Button
Fainting episodes often begin in the same way and in the same situations as the well-known fight-or-flight response. When animals, including human animals, sense a possibly mortal threat, adrenaline and other hormones (called catecholamines) flood into our bloodstreams. Our hearts race. Our blood pressures soar. We breathe faster. Crucially, we get a burst of energy, allowing us to either escape from the threat or battle it off.
But as you’ll soon see, the old duality of “fight or flight” needs an update. Many animals have at their disposal an additional trick to boost their odds of living through a dangerous encounter. It’s not just fight or flight. It’s fight, flight, or faint.
Remarkably, fainting begins the same way as the other two fear responses—with a high-emotion stressor and a surge of adrenaline. But from there fainting follows a different route. Instead of the heart beating faster (tachycardia), it plummets (bradycardia). Instead of blood pressure surging, it plunges. Detecting low-pressure, slow-moving blood, sensors throughout the body signal to the brain that something is terribly wrong: a failing heart or a catastrophic loss of blood. In a protective response, the brain shuts the system down by fainting.
Undivided Medicine Concept
A leading physician of that era named Rudolf Virchow, still renowned today as the father of modern pathology, put it this way: “Between animal and human medicine there is no dividing line—nor should there be. The object is different but the experience obtained constitutes the basis of all medicine.”*
Miracle of the Spider!
If you are an ER doc in São Paulo, you are most likely aware that erections can arise from another surprising source: the venomous bite of the Brazilian spider Phoneutria nigriventer. While potentially toxic and possibly fatal, the venom can also induce an erection lasting many hours. Not surprisingly the venom has been marketed to males for whom more conventional pharmaceuticals have not provided success.
Don't Ignore Those Monsters
In March 2007, American house pets sounded the alarm. When dogs and cats began getting sick and dying of kidney failure in massive numbers, veterinarians jumped on the case. The problem was traced to tainted pet food, leading to a huge recall across the United States. It turned out that Chinese wheat gluten manufacturers were adding the chemical melamine to their product in order to raise the perceived protein levels and were then selling the gluten to pet food manufacturers. Forewarned by the veterinarians, U.S. food safety and public health officials quickly placed stringent anti-melamine inspections in place for the human food supply. (Unfortunately, Chinese officials didn’t put the same measure into effect in time to save hundreds of Chinese babies, who were sickened and in some cases killed by melamine-tainted infant formula.)
Animals can also be sentinels for threats that are not infectious. Animal abuse is very strongly linked to child and domestic violence; British police, for example, have found that when child abuse is suspected in a home, incidents of animal abuse are often reported there first. Mistreatment of animals, particularly cats, strongly presages future antisocial and violent behavior against people. As Melissa Trollinger details in an article about the links between animal cruelty and human abuse, the mass murderers “Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert DeSalvo (the ‘Boston Strangler’), Ted Bundy, and David Berkowitz (the ‘Son of Sam’) all admitted to mutilating, impaling, torturing, and killing animals in their youth.”
OCD vs. CCD (and more)
Behaviors such as flank biting, tail sucking, and feather plucking may be more common than we think, at least in certain breeds. Up to 70 percent of Dobermans, for example, will develop time-consuming and often distressing repetitive actions, including but not limited to self-injury. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian at Tufts University, treats and