Quote:
Originally Posted by headquarters
I have seen in movies and read about people that have human flesh in their diet :
they may develop some sort of neural problem leading to shaking hands,jitters etc .
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Two things came to mind when I read that:
1) Mad Cow Disease -- the human flesh may be transmitting some sort of disease, enzymes, or prions that are incompatible with human digestion or metabolism.
2) Kuru, also called the Laughing Disease. In the Western Pacific (in Indonesia?) there are a group of people called the Fore. They regularly practiced cannibalism, and when the brain was eaten, there was a chance you could get Kuru, which screws up your nerve impulses and causes muscular spasms. At its worst (usually right before death), Kuru causes spasms in the diaphragm that make the person kind of sound like they're laughing.
Here's a Wiki link for Kuru
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29
It turns out that both are a form of spongiform encephalopathy, and are caused by prions -- which is just a fancy way of saying that nasty proteins are eating your brain.