Can recipients of organ transplants inherit the preferences of their donors?

[savage_beauty]

A few nights ago I saw a TV show about a lady that had a heart and lung transplant.

After a fairly successful operation during her recovery period, her daughter went shopping and asked her mother if there was anything she could get for her while she was out shopping

This previous health conscious woman blurted out she would really like a “beer and a burger and chips”,

Things she has never drank or ate due to being extremely careful all her life due to her fragile health.

As time went by she had dreams of riding on a motor bike, and even dancing even though she had never rode a motor bike and hadn't danced since she was diagnosed with heart problems.

She then went to the hospital to see it they would tell her who was the donor of these organs

To cut the story short she found that it was a healthy young man of 19 who had died in a motorbike accident.

He was a keen motor cyclist, loved burgers and chips and beer and went out often with his friends dancing.

Medical science is now recognizing this as a genuine phenomenon often found in organ transplants and the term they use is Cell Memory

It seems that our consciousness or intelligence does not just reside in the brain, but it pervades our whole body down to the very cellular level

This is interesting to me, Have any of you guys read about this?

Do you believe it?

[Th0r]

Probably bullshit made up of coincidences and people wanting to get into Hollywood quickly.

[savage_beauty]

There are other stories that come to mind. I dont thinks its bull. Some doctors have even got to the stage of warning patients before their transplant. Apartently 1 in 10 transplant patient will have some experience of Cellular memory. Besides what would an old relatively well of woman whose in recovery want with hollywood?

[odin_dax]

Well, I suppose anything may be possible. This certainly won't affect the brain or memory, and all those stories are bullshit, but maybe there is, somewhere in the genes and proteins of these new organs, that cause certain cravings.

Some people love chocolate, some people crave strawberries. Maybe these cravings are flaws in the DNA, where the intake of certain nutrients and enzymes we know can be found in these sources must be increased for healthy cell reproduction or some other function.

We all have certain cravings from time to time. It's our body telling us we are lacking something. If these cravings are genetic factors beyond normal, everyday health, then I think it's quite possible that these stories MAY be truthful. I don't see how any of it can be proven until even all the proteins in the Human Genome Project are mapped.

[Th0r]

I don't believe wanting things due to cells and proteins is a lie, not at all but blurting out... ?beer and a burger and chips? seems like something put on.

She then went to the hospital to see it they would tell her who was the donor of these organs

To cut the story short she found that it was a healthy young man of 19 who had died in a motorbike accident.

He was a keen motor cyclist, loved burgers and chips and beer and went out often with his friends dancing.


Yea and after they did the investigations on the donor. Oh yeah isn't that funny, I wanted to dance and ride a motorbike.

The part of your body responsible for urges is your brain and a far as I know that can't be transplanted. :ouch:

[odin_dax]

The part of your body responsible for urges is your brain and a far as I know that can't be transplanted. :ouch:

What I was trying to say is that if a person has a genetic defect where certain nutrients require an increased intake for physical health, the brain will pick that up; and, if organs from that person are transplanted into someone else, the DNA of those organs may cause proteins and chemicals to form in the new body, thus creating these new cravings.

When the brain learns a food has certain nutrients, and the body later becomes deficient in any nutrient, the person will feel a craving for that food. It's not always by mind, but most of the time by sight.

"Hey, that broccoli looks really good. I'll try that."

[Nox (ADVANCED)]

So if you get a pig heart you will roll around in mud or a monkey/baboon heart you will fling your own shit?

[odin_dax]

So if you get a pig heart you will roll around in mud or a monkey/baboon heart you will fling your own shit?

Not at all. Those aren't nutrient cravings. :irked:

[7eleven mafia]

it probably can happen because the organs require certain things and want certain things, and it could not even be an urge but a supposed thing that an organ requires that the brain picks up on

[savage_beauty]

I agree with odin dax. Maybe your organs remember things about you. Like if a donor is a vegetarian the patient receiving the organ might find meat sickening for a while. Or for ever.

[DoctaD]

You're not going to crave beer, not knowing what it tastes like...

[odin_dax]

True, DD.

This could also be psychological after the fact. Fudge the story and say you had these desires before the knowing what the doctor said, then you have the average trailer hick getting famous for 15 minutes.

Cell memory, fine, but I find it absolutely impossible cells contain our consciousness or intelligence.