A creature that stalks the night with a thirst for human blood has starred in nightmares for centuries. People once buried their loved ones with stakes in their chests to keep them from rising out of their graves. But were the myths about vampires really born from just superstition and imagination? Or could there have been some explanation as to why people thought vampires existed?

Before the understanding of many different health conditions, people tried to explain strange symptoms with tales of monsters. A lot of the traits of a vampire are actually symptoms of a condition known as porphyria. It is so similar to “vampirism” that it’s been nicknamed “the vampire disease.”

Porphyria

Porphyria is an umbrella term for several different genetic disorders that affect the body’s red blood cells and the ability to carry oxygen throughout the tissues. Everyone needs heme, a foundational part of the hemoglobin in our blood. But in porphyria, the enzymes that create heme don’t stop other chemicals, called porphyrins, from building up and causing the heme to become unstable or degraded.

There are eight different types of porphyria, with each falling into one of two categories: acute porphyrias and cutaneous porphyrias. Acute porphyrias often cause nausea and vomiting, GI upset, fatigue, dizziness, and mental conditions like hallucinations. However, the cutaneous porphyrias have symptoms that lend themselves to the traditional vampire legends.

Symptoms Linked to Vampires

People with any of the cutaneous porphyrias have adverse effects from sun exposure. Their skin can become itchy, painful, and swollen. Some even blister as if they’ve been badly burned. These symptoms can occur after only a few minutes in the sun, so it makes sense that these individuals would only come out at night.

Other symptoms that seemingly point to vampirism are receding gums, making teeth look longer and fang-like, and red urine. If your diet were mainly blood, then it would stand to reason that your urine would turn red. And many with porphyria were anemic, and so were advised by medieval doctors to drink animal blood to raise their iron levels. Symptoms could also be triggered by the sulfur in garlic, so many people would avoid garlic as much as possible.

Who Had Porphyria?!

All of the traits of vampires: avoiding sunlight and garlic, having fangs, and evidence of drinking blood, appear as symptoms of porphyria. People in ancient times didn’t understand these genetic disorders and came up with the best explanation they could. Thankfully, vampires do not exist, and people with porphyria are not monsters.

Porphyria has been linked to several members of European royalty and nobility, with a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II being diagnosed in 1968. Some historians have thought King George III’s madness could have been caused by porphyria and have also wondered whether Mary, Queen of Scots, had the disorder. It was once thought that Vlad the Impaler, an inspiration for the vampires of legend, had porphyria, but there is no evidence to support it. That would be a cool connection between vampires and porphyria, though.

Modern Day Treatment

There is no cure for porphyria, but symptoms can be managed. The problem is that managing those symptoms feeds into the old vampire stereotypes. Reducing sun exposure is one of the biggest ways to protect against a porphyria attack, even with medications that reduce porphyrins.

Thankfully, we live in a modern world that understands more about disease, so unless you’re near a vampire cult, porphyria isn’t something that needs to be feared. Those with porphyria might struggle with their symptoms, but with the genetic component of the disease, they can make the claim that they are descended from the legendary vampires.

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