10 Awesome & Little-Known Facts about the Human Body

Awesome & Little-Known Facts about the Human Body

Your body is many things: a mechanical device, a walking chemistry set, a sustainable life form, and an ever-changing biological phenomenon. There’s a lot to know about the body. Were you aware of these ten amazing facts?

1. For every pound of fat gained, you add seven miles of new blood vessels.

New tissue needs blood supply, so your vascular system expands to accommodate it. This also means your heart must work harder to pump blood through the new network, which may reduce oxygenation and nutrient replenishment in other tissues. Lose a pound? Your body will break down and reabsorb the unneeded blood vessels from the previous tissue.

2. Muscle tissue is three times more efficient at burning calories than fat.

This is why possessing more muscle should be a training goal for most people. More muscle = more calories burned = less fat = being more fit looking. Simple goals and simple math.

3. You are taller in the morning than in the evening.

When you crawl out of the sack in the morning you are at your tallest. On average, you are approximately one half inch taller when you wake in the morning, thanks to excess fluid between within your spinal discs. While you are sleeping, these fluids replenish. During the day your body has to deal with the stress of standing, so the discs become compressed and the fluid seeps out. This results in you losing a small amount of extra height.

4. Your stomach manufactures a new lining every three days to avoid digesting itself.

As a part of the digestive process, your stomach secretes hydrochloric acid (HA). HA is a powerful corrosive compound also used to treat various metals. The HA your stomach secretes is also powerful, but mucous lining the stomach wall keeps it within the digestive system. As a result it breaks down the food you consume, but not your own stomach.

5. Your body produces enough heat in only thirty minutes to boil a half-gallon of water.

Your body is the epitome of a study on the laws of thermodynamics. You produce heat from all that is going on - exercise, metabolizing food, maintaining homeostasis – and as you sweat, exhale, excrete, and urinate (lovely thoughts, all of them).

6. Human bone is as strong as granite, relative to supporting resistance.

Would you believe a matchbox-size chunk of bone can support 18,000 pounds? Compared to concrete, human bone is four times greater in support strength.

7. Your skin is an organ.

Just like the liver, heart, and kidneys, your outer covering is an organ. An average man has enough skin on his body to cover approximately twenty square feet. For an average woman it is approximately seventeen square feet. Approximately 12% of your weight is from your skin. And, your skin replaces 45,000+ cells in only a few seconds. It’s constantly growing new skin and shedding old skin.

8. By the age of eighteen your brain stops growing.

From that age forward it begins to lose more than 1,000 brain cells every day. Only two percent of your body weight is occupied by your gray matter, but is uses up to 20% of your overall energy output (it needs carbohydrates). Your brain works continuously and never rests, even when you’re asleep. Aside from producing REM dreams, your brain works overtime to replenish its ability to function normally during your daytime waking hours.

9. There are more than 600 individual skeletal muscles and 206 bones in your body.

If all 600+ muscles contracted and pulled in the same direction, you could lift over twenty tons of resistance. Additionally, the adult skeleton is composed of 206 bones, but at birth an infant skeleton contains approximately 350 bones. Over time, some of the 350 bones fuse together and eventually grow to the 206 adult figure.

10. You need to consume a quart of water each day for four months to equate to the amount of blood your heart pumps in one hour.

Additionally, over a lifetime, at your normal (resting) heart rate you will have pumped enough blood to fill thirteen oil super tankers. To further expound on this fact, on average, your heart beats 40,000,000 times per year. Doing the math, over your lifetime (both men and women averaged), that results in 2,600,000,000 heartbeats (two billion, six hundred million). This does not even factor in your increased heartbeats due to your love of exercise.

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