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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
Health
Sophie Buchan

Doctor explains that humans have stripes on skin similar to a tiger - and TikTok is going crazy

A doctor has taken to TikTok to share some pretty strange news in the world of human anatomy - and it's all about your skin.

Dr Karan Raj, an NHS surgeon and social media educator, began his video by reacting to another video showing a baby with stripes which looked like marbled skin.

He later reveals that this is in fact not photo-shopped or edited in anyway and we really all have stripes.

Yes, that includes you.

Dr Raj explains: "In case you didn't realise, all humans have stripes. They're called Blaschko’s Lines and they follow a set pattern.

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"They're usually invisible to the naked eye and can only be seen under UV light."

He goes onto explain that the lines, such as those you can see in the picture, don't follow arteries, veins, nerves, muscles or any system in the body.

They are formed when you are inside the womb and as an embryo develops, "different cells move around taking different routes" and as a result, these lines are said to be the trail that these cells leave - which is actually quite beautiful when you think about it.

The stripes are being called 'beautiful' by many. (Dr Karan Raj)

He adds that there are some medical conditions that make them visible to the naked eye so for the majority of us, we will never see it.

According to MentalFloss, who write about everything from health to history, the stripes run up and down your arms and legs, around your head and your torso.

They state that in the early 1900s, a German dermatologist by the name Alfred Blaschko reported that "many of his patients’ rashes and moles seemed to follow similar formations, almost as though they were tracing invisible lines. But those lines didn’t follow nerves or blood vessels. They didn’t represent any known body system."

They add: "Most people will never see their own stripes. As Blaschko noted, there are dozens of skin conditions that follow these lines, but most of them affect patches of skin or a single body part, not the entire body."

Taking to TikTok to reply to the doctor one said: "That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!! Beautiful!!!"

Another added: "That babies skin is incredibly beautiful."

A third commented: "That looks beautiful."

Have you heard of this before?

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