- Oh, the revolting humanity!
Frankly, my friend, you’re disgusting. Don’t take it too personally, though, since we all are.
The human body is a gross, filthy, and wonderful machine. It does a lot of stuff that is just weird or downright revolting, but still fun and fascinating in its own way.
Here are 10 interesting things your body does that you might not know about. And you might wish you didn’t.
1. Average Person Farts 15 Times a Day
Let’s start with the one gross thing probably on everybody’s minds: farts. According to gastrointestinal experts, the average person farts 15–25 times every day.
And that’s while you’re awake. We apparently fart even more in our sleep. That said, how much gas you pass is highly personal, and some people may toot even 40 times a day without there being anything wrong with them.
Luckily for us all, only about 1% of the gas we expel is odorous. Can you imagine if we could smell all of it?
2. Most Cells in Your Body Aren’t Human
Most of what you consider your body isn’t actually yours. Heck, it’s not even human.
An average person has around 30 trillion human cells. Meanwhile, your body (particularly your intestines) carries roughly 38 trillion bacteria that coexist with you more or less harmoniously.
The exact human-to-inhuman ratio can vary, though. In some people, it’s so close that even taking a big poop can make them more human.
Speaking of big poops…
3. You Can Poop Hard Enough to Pass Out
Ever wondered why you have that light, great feeling after you do #2? It’s thanks to a thing called the vagus nerve that runs through your body from your brain to your digestive system.
It’s also involved with your exit chute, so to speak. Having a bowel movement stimulates the vagus nerve, which produces a euphoric sensation by lowering the blood pressure and heart rate.
It’s your body’s little reward for pooping.
But if you take a massive dump, for example due to constipation, the vagus nerve may get overstimulated. In such a case, your blood pressure could drop so much that you pass out on the throne.
4. You Produce 2 Quarts of Snot Daily
Ever wondered how much snot you make per day? No? Well, it’s about 1.5-2 quarts.
You’re welcome.
Most of that phlegm and mucus, however, drips harmlessly down your throat. What, did you think it was saliva that you swallow twice per minute (on average)?
Only about a cup’s worth of snot comes out through your nose per day. Unless you happen to be sick, in which case it can be several times more.
Again, you’re welcome.
5. You Lose and Gain Bones Through Your Life
When you were born, you had 300 bones in your body. But as you’re reading this article, you no longer have all of those.
An adult human has 206 bones in their body. The lower number is due to ossification, which means some of those baby bones fuse together to form stronger adult bones.
That said, you do have some bones that babies don’t. For example, you were born without kneecaps, which don’t turn from cartilage to bone until your sixth year.
6. Most Dust in Your Home is Your Skin
Ever wondered where all that dust in your home comes from? Unfortunately, the answer to a lion’s share of it is you.
An average person sheds about 30,000 dead skin cells per minute. You do the math of how much skin you dump in your home on a daily basis.
In fact, we replace our entire skin surface every month, meaning your regular Joe goes through around 1,000 skins throughout his life. You just don’t shed your skin in one big piece like reptiles, but little by little over every passing second.
7. Your Liver is Toxic (If You Ate It)
Should you ever have to eat another human being, don’t make liver and onions. Believe it or not, the human liver is fatally poisonous for humans to eat.
That’s due to the liver’s extremely high vitamin A content. Eating an entire human liver would cause a vitamin A overdose, which can very easily be fatal. And that’s without mentioning all the chemicals and other impurities our modern lives pack in our livers.
Thinking about it, you know that scene from The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecter says he once ate a census taker’s liver? Maybe he’s not as smart as he’s made out to be.
8. You’re Full of Filthy Biofilms
There are few things more gross than a disgusting layer of bacterial goo covering a damp basement floor, a sewer pipe, or a rock on the beach. If just a thought of that makes you shudder, you’d better not look inside your mouth.
Your mouth and teeth are at most times covered with a biofilm of bacteria. The conditions in your face hole are so disgusting that the film will start covering your teeth within 24 hours.
And that’s why you need to brush your teeth.
9. Your Stomach Blushes with You
Your crush just gave you a charming smile, or maybe you’re embarrassed half to death. Either way, your face is turning bright red — and so is your stomach.
It turns out that the nerves on your face and the inner linings of your stomach are closely connected. When you blush, the nerves fire and cause the surface veins to expand, increasing blood flow and causing your cheeks to turn red.
The same thing happens inside your stomach, not that anyone can (hopefully) see it. You know, you really have to wonder how they find out some of this stuff.
10. Your Pee is Super Valuable
You would imagine nobody wants anything to do with pee. However, human urine has historically been extremely valuable.
It has been used for many weird purposes, from making leather to cleaning clothes and even as mouthwash. These days, enterprising agricultural scientists are looking into the possibility of harvesting human pee to extract nitrogen, a valuable fertilizer that’s in short supply globally.
I’d crack some joke about golden showers, but I think at this point I’m going to go shudder in a fetal position and try not to think about my body.
Want more bodily weirdness? Check out this list of 8 everyday things that physically change your brain.