I went with a group who were (myself as well) in an Educational Program involving health care.
I personally left the exhibit with 2 minds.
On the one hand it was fascinating and enlightening. On the other it was a bit macabre and disturbing.
Some of the displays were really strange as in the saggitudinal (sp) cuts, while others such as the coal miner lungs contrasted with the smoking and non smoking lung were simply amazing.
If anything ever made me glad I don't smoke, it was those lungs. Yuck. And the coal miner's lungs... They pay a high price to bring us coal.
I know what you mean about disturbing, in a way. My dad had died 13 months earlier, so he was on my mind prominently, especially when I saw the Alzheimer's brain. Finally, after so many years, being able to see what had taken my dad away was a very powerful moment for me. I know that what I found meaningful could have been disturbing or upsetting to others, though.
I paid a lot of attention to what other people were doing that day. We had a young baby & so we took frequent breaks to sit and hold the baby. The reactions that other people were having was interesting. No one was disrespectful. Many people, even kids, seemed to be speechless.
I think it is worth mentioning is that in times past, people had a very different view of bodies than we seem to now, and that the direct use of bodies in art is in no way new.
Europe has I-don't-know-how-many ossuaries, some hundreds of years old. They are full of human bones that have been used to make chandeliers, candle holders, altars, furniture, you name it. It sort of bothers me that people think Body Worlds is somehow a "new low" or even somehow "new". It's neither.
Most modern people live so far removed from ever seeing visceral things; rarely touching their own dead, leaving caring for the sick to professionals.
I think it becomes easy to disregard what we never see as not important or not worthy of protecting. For that reason alone (but for me personally, many others), I thought that Body Worlds was worthwhile.