Rex Trulove
There is a great deal we still don’t know about the human body. For instance, it isn’t understood why people suddenly develop allergies to something, though the mechanism that causes the symptoms is well-understood. Here are just 12 of the strange and fascinating facts about the human body that we do know, though.
* If all the blood vessels in a human body could be laid out in a line, they would reach nearly two and a half times around the earth. If a strand of DNA from a person was unraveled and laid out, it would stretch across the solar system.
* The human stomach is capable of dissolving bone. In large part, this is because an average stomach has 35 million digestive glands that produce extremely powerful acid. If the stomach wasn’t continually lined with mucus, it would dissolve itself quickly.
* If all of the heat produced by the human body in just a half-hour could be contained and focused, it would be enough to bring two quarts of water to a boil.
* Women’s breasts are getting larger in the United States. In 1990, the average bra size was 34 B. The average bra size is now larger than 36 C. This fact is a little deceiving, though. Breasts are primarily made of body fat. Women who gain weight due to an increase in body fat usually end up with larger breasts. There are more overweight women in the US now than there were in 1990, so it stands to reason that the average bra size would get larger.
* Barbers at one time did a lot more than just cutting hair. People went to barbers to have their teeth pulled and for bloodletting. Bloodletting was once considered to be “the” treatment for many maladies. In fact, the red and white striped barber pole represents the red of the bloodletting and the white of the bandages used afterward.
* For just under 40% of people the feeling of thirst is so weak that it is often mistaken for the feeling of hunger. If a person becomes dehydrated, their energy level drops, they often have lapses in memory, and they have more difficulty thinking. If they eat while they are dehydrated because they mistake the feeling for hunger, they make the dehydration worse. They also tend to gain weight far faster than a person who is properly hydrated. Thus, if you want to lose weight, start by making sure you are drinking lots of water.
* One of the first anesthetics used in medicine was actually for the doctors and not for the patients. Inca doctors often chewed coca leaves while performing surgery, to help calm their nerves. Coca leaves, from which cocaine is derived, contain powerful painkillers.
* The largest gallstone ever removed from a person weighed just under 14 pounds.
* The most common plastic surgery procedure for men is for breast reduction.
* It takes about seven seconds for food to move from the mouth to the stomach.
* In the womb, a human baby can hiccup and have been documented doing so.
* One man is known to have had hiccups continually for 68 years.
These 12 fascinating facts about the human body should be enough to have your synapses firing like crazy. This is strange stuff, isn’t it?
Ok… some are really surprising!
The plastic surgery one and poor man, with his hiccups… :/
Yes. In the first case, they could do the same thing by losing weight. In the second, I suspect that after that length of time, he was so used to them that he didn’t even notice.