Things About the Body You’ll Like to Know

The human body is amazing. We are creatures full of good and bad qualities that are undoubtedly capable of doing great things. Here are ten things about the body that will surely surprise you!

1. Are you missing a tendon?

This may surprise you, but 15% of people lack a tendon in the flexor carpi radialis muscle. If you want to find out if you are one of these people you just have to do one thing: touch your thumb to your pinky finger and try to bend the wrist backwards. Two tendons can be seen in 85% of people who do this, but sometimes you can only see one. How many do you see?

2. Vasovagal Syncope

This is another strange yet problematic thing about people. Some people pass out after urinating. This occurs when urination stimulates the vagus nerve and sometimes causes a sudden drop in blood pressure. It is no laughing matter.

3. Reproductive organs and kidneys

These two are very closely related. Let’s look at men for example. When a man receives a strong hit to the testicles, he feels pain in his kidneys. This is a result of the development of the two together until they both reach their final state.

4. Try to move the ring finger

Time for a little test: place your hand on a flat surface and try to lift each finger. You should be able to lift all of them but the ring finger. There may be some people who can, but this finger’s movement is usually limited since the index finger and pinky have independent muscles, while the ring finger and middle finger share one. You can”t straighten one and bend the other at the same time.

5. One kidney is higher than the other

Here’s another one: the left kidney is slightly higher than the right one in the human body. Why is this? This happens because of the pressure the liver exerts on the right kidney. Did you know that?

6. Blood sugar

If the amount of sugar in the blood is equal to a tablespoon dissolved in blood, you could live two days without eating and have no serious issues. Later on, the body begins to suffer from a process known as ketosis when the liver breaks down the glycogen to make up for the lack of sugar in the blood. This is really something dangerous that isn’t worth trying. This is also why high protein diets free of sugars are discouraged.

7. Did you know you have fewer bones than a baby?

It’s true! You are born with about 300 bones in your body. However as you grow, these bones begin to fuse and develop together until you only have the 206 bones found in the body of an adult.

8. Try to breathe and swallow at the same time. Can you?

Have you ever tried this? Well, it’s impossible. This is a strange result of evolution in which the roof of the mouth developed further back to cover the pharynx and better enable speech. This feature increases the likelihood that you may choke which is why the epiglottis is there to keep food from slipping into respiratory passages. All of this together makes it impossible to swallow and breathe at the same time.

9. How many antibodies do you produce a day on average?

Three grams. This is really important for your health and also important to protect your body from those harmful little micro-organisms.

10. How many atoms make up the human body?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? While this question probably hasn’t kept you up at night, it’s surely crossed your mind at one time or another. Let’s give you a quick example: if a person weighs 70 kilograms, to figure out how many atoms they have in their body you need to write down the number 7 followed by 27 zeros. Is that hard to imagine? It’s surprising, but true!