By Blue Earth Training Ltd
•
01 May, 2020
The human body is an incredible thing. Whilst we are busy going about our everyday lives, our bodies are continuously performing millions of complex processes that we are not aware of. With countless fascinating facts available about how our bodies work, we have compiled our top 7 favourite statistics that may just help you to appreciate the hard work your body does every day. 1. Your body produces 25 million new cells each second. To put that into perspective, every 3 seconds you produce more cells than there are people living in the UK. 2. The heart is the hardest working muscle in the body. In just one day, the heart can create enough energy to drive a van over 18 miles! In an average lifetime, the heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times, thats 100,000 time per day. 3. Your lungs inhale approximately 2, ooo,ooo litres of air every day. When resting, the average adult breathes around 12 to 20 times a minute. The study of lung diseases is known as pulmonology and your lung on the left side is smaller in size than the right one in order to fit the heart. The lungs are the only organ in the body that can float. 4. A full grown adult has 206 bones, whereas the skeleton of a new-born baby is made up of over 300, most of which are made of cartilage. As a baby grows, the majority of the cartilage turns into bone and over time, some of its bones fuse together to make bigger bones. The hands have the most bones — 27 in each hand. The hands and feet together make up more than half the bones in the human body. The smallest bone in the body is the stirrup bone, one of the 3 bones that make up your middle ear and is shaped like a “U.” It is the innermost bone that receives sound vibrations and passes them along to the cochlea to eventually be interpreted by the brain. 5. Your nose can recognise around 50,000 different scents, 80% of what you’re tasting is determined by what you’re smelling. The brain region for processing smells is up to 50% larger in women, your nose and sinuses produce almost 1 later of mucus a day (which you swallow). You don’t sneeze in your sleep because the nerves that trigger sneezing are sleeping. Smell is the only one of the 5 senses directly connected to the area of the brain where memories are formed and emotions processed. 6. Seeing is so important that it takes up more than 50% of the brain’s functionality. Newborns don’t shed tears, though they do know how to cry. You blink about 15-20 times in a minute. The most active muscles in your body are in your eyes and your eyes can get sunburned. Until about 10,000 years ago, all human beings had brown eyes. Blue eyes are a more recent phenomenon caused by a genetic mutation, a sign that humans are still evolving. 7. Teeth, the enamel on the top surface on your tooth is the hardest part of your entire body. Teeth start to form even before you are born—milk teeth or baby teeth start to form when the baby is in the womb, but they come through when the child is between 6-12 months old. An average person spends 38.5 days brushing their teeth over their lifetime. Many diseases are linked to your oral health, including heart disease, osteoporosis, and diabetes. One third of your tooth is underneath your gums—that means only two thirds of your tooth’s length is visible. If you get your tooth knocked out, put it in milk or hold it in your mouth—this will help your tooth to survive longer. Make sure you see a dentist right away.