Top 15 Amazing Facts About The Human Body

[Nek Muhammad]

1. The stomach’s digestive acids are strong enough to dissolve zinc. Fortunately for us, the cells in the stomach lining renew so quickly that the acids don’t have time to dissolve it.

2. The lungs contain over 300,000 million capillaries (tiny blood vessels). If they were laid end to end, they would stretch 2400km (1500 miles).

3. A man’s testicles manufacture 10 million new sperm cells each day – enough that he could repopulate the entire planet in only 6 months!

4. Human bone is as strong as granite in supporting weight. A block of bone the size of a matchbox can support 9 tonnes – that is four times as much as concrete can support.

5. Each finger and toenail takes six months to grow from base to tip.


6. The largest organ in the body is the skin. In an adult man it covers about 1.9m2 (20sq ft). The skin constantly flakes away – in a lifetime each person sheds around 18kg (40 lb) of skin.

7. When you sleep, you grow by about 8mm (0.3in). The next day you shrink back to your former height. The reason is that your cartilage discs are squeezed like sponges by the force of gravity when you stand or sit.

8. The average person in the west eats 50 tonnes of food and drinks 50,000 litres (11,000 gallons) of liquid during his life.

9. Each kidney contains 1 million individual filters. They filter an average of around 1.3 litres (2.2 pints) of blood per minute and expel up to 1.4 litres (2.5 pints) a day of urine.

10. The focusing muscles of the eyes move around 100,000 times a day. To give your leg muscles the same workout, you would need to walk 80km (50 miles) every day.


11. In 30 minutes, the average body gives off enough heat (combined) to bring a half gallon of water to boil.

12. A single human blood cell takes only 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

13. A foreskin, the size of a postage stamp, from circumcised babies take only 21 days to grow skin that can cover three (3) basketball courts. Amazing isn’t it. Thanks to science. The laboratory-grown skin is used in treating burn patients.

14. The eyes receive approximately 90 percent of all our information, making us basically visual creatures.

15. The female ovaries contain nearly half-a-million egg cells, yet only 400 or so will ever get the opportunity to create a new life.

[Nek Muhammad]

~Your brain will stop growing in size when you are about 15 years old.
~If the liver ever stops working a person will die within 8 to 24 hours.
~More men than women are colour blind about 8 out of every 200 men, as compared to 1 out of every 200 women.
~The human heart pumps 1.5 million gallons of blood a year.
~The left side of your brain controls your right side of the body and vice versa.
~It takes 48 hours for your body to completely digest the food from one meal.
~Stuttering is 4 to 6 times more common in boys than girls.
~Two normal kidneys contain 2 million tiny blood filters which filter 50 gallons of blood every day.
~A scientist who weighed people immediately before and after death concluded that human soul weighs 21 gms.
~Our nerves transmit messages at up to 300 ft per second.
~No two outer ears (pinnae) - even your own - are exactly alike. There are some key identification points on the outer ear that do not change throughout one's life. Earology, as the system is called, was developed to supplement identification by fingerprints.
~The muscle of the human jaw exert a force of over 219 kgs.
~The nail on our middle finger grows fastest. The nail on the thumb grows slowest.
~The most common disease of the world is tooth-decay.
~One fifth of the oxygen we inhale is used up by the cells in the brain.
~It is impossible to sneeze and keep your eyes open at the same time.
~When you were only a fertilized egg - you were about the size of the head of a pin!
~Man's three-pound brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter known in the universe.
~On average, we lose 11 oz. of weight while we are asleep at night.
~The human eye can distinguish about 17,000 different colours.
~There are more than 600 muscles in our muscular system.
~Blind people who have been blind from birth cannot dream sights but they dream sounds instead.
~Chemically the substance that is closest to human blood is sea water.
~You have about 3,000 taste buds on your tongue.
~Sleep-walking is more common in children than adults.
~We die more quickly from lack of sleep than lack of food.
~It takes 17 muscles to smile and 40 muscles to frown