Monday, April 7, 2008

Connected Heart

Over the past few years I've become somewhat intrigued with the link between organ donors and their recipients. This fascination started one night when I was flipping through channels and came across a program devoted to the topic. It seems that, often, people receiving the gift of an organ donation get more than just a healthy organ; they inherit new personality traits. It's been awhile, but one case I remember seeing was about a man who had a liver transplant; after the new liver had time to settle into his body, he acquired a love for fired chicken, which he'd never liked before. It turned out that fried chicken had been a staple in the donor's diet. Kinda weird. I've seen and read other things about this subject as well. Sometimes the owners of the new organs even inherit a new talent.
This is what prompted me to write about the subject. It's a disheartening story(no pun intended), but adds substance to the claim that organ recipients can acquire the traits of their donors. A man who got the heart of a young man who had committed suicide by gunshot, eventually married the man's wife and years later killed himself in the same way. Very odd. Some may say that something about the wife may be the culprit. lol

I personally think there is something very curious about this. What do you think about this topic overall? Has anyone heard about more instances of links between organ donors and their recipients? I'd like to hear em. :)

2 comments:

Here, There, Elsewhere... and more said...

Hi Jessica, I was similarly struck by the article you mentionned (I got it on CNN) and am extremely puzzled by the whole subject - bizarrely, on the same subject, this morming, the Daily Mail (UK) had this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=558256&in_page_id=1774
"The plot thickens" as they say :)

Jessica said...

Yeah, it's a pretty strange topic. I tried to follow your link but it said the story was no longer available. :(