At Integrative Nutrition, we know how unique and bio-individual the human body is. That’s why we teach that there is no one right way of eating the works for everyone! But have you ever paused to consider just how incredible your body really is? Not only does it breathe, pump blood, and digest food without any conscious effort on your part, it is also a marvel of biology and mechanics in many ways.

As you continue on your health journey, it’s important to keep these things in mind, as they will encourage you to  take good care of that incredible body of yours – after all, you only get one!

Here are 27 amazing things you may not know about the human body:  

1. We produce about 1.5 liters of saliva every day.
2. When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.
3. Most of the tissues in your body experience continuous renewal, some being replaced daily or every few days (skin cells, stomach lining), every few weeks or months (red blood cells), or over the course of several years (fat cells, skeleton), with the majority completely replaced every 7-10 years. You’re never really the same person year after year!
4. The surface area of your lungs is large enough to cover one side of a tennis court.
5. Breastmilk can change its chemical composition to meet the unique nutritional needs of the baby.
6. Humans are bioluminescent and emit light that glows in the dark, however the light is too weak to see with the human eye.
7. Skin is the largest organ of the human body, accounting for about 15% of your total body weight.
8. Your fingernails can show your state of health, indicating problems such as mineral or vitamin deficiencies, liver trouble, thyroid or anemia. Some warning signs of deficiencies that show up on your nails may be that they are brittle, pale or spotted.
9. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
10. The human nose is a personal air-conditioning system, it can warm cool air, cool warm air, and filter out impurities.
11. The ratio of bacteria cells to human cells in our bodies is about 1.3 to 1, not 10 to 1 as previously thought.
12. The pressure of your pumping heart would be able to squirt blood up to 30 feet away!
13. The adult body is made up of about 60% water, though we start out at about 75% water as newborn babies, around the same as the ratio of water to land on planet Earth.
14. We are born with 350 bones, but some of them fuse over time, resulting in 206 bones in adulthood.
15. The average person spends about 1/3 of their life sleeping, and you burn more calories while getting your Zzz’s that than watching television, so rest up!
16. Children grow faster in the spring and summer than in autumn or winter.
17. The blood vessels in the average human body can circumnavigate the Earth two and a half times.
18. Your belly button holds enough bacteria to house an entire ecosystem the equivalent of the Amazon rainforest.
19. The atoms that make up your body are the same atoms that formed the Big Bang.
20. There is no supercomputer that even comes close to the operation capacity and complexity of the human brain.
21. You really do share 50% of your DNA with bananas (and many other plants and species).
22. Females are better at detecting different colors, while males excel at tracking fast-moving objects and discerning detail from a distance.
23. Crying is an effective way of alleviating stress, and releasing feelings of anger or sadness.
24. 1 in 10,000 people have their internal organs reversed or “mirrored” so they are positioned on the opposite side than everyone else, though they’re otherwise perfectly healthy.
25. A single drop of blood contains 250 million cells.
26. The human body has 500,000 touch detectors.
27. You can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.

What do you find amazing about YOUR body? Share in the comments below!