The vitamin and mineral industry is worth more than 37 billion dollars , which is why many people make big money on chewable vitamin C and calcium supplements. We want to believe we can maintain a healthy balance of all the elements we need for a full, healthy life, but how much of each element do we actually have inside us? It turns out we have a surprising amount of the most basic elements, which, taken out of context, really puts into perspective just how remarkable the human body is.
10. 3 to 5 grams of iron
«"Iron helps us play," it says. «The Simpsons» , We all know that iron can be obtained from liver, spinach, and the like, even if not everyone understands why it's so important. For reference, iron is an essential component of hemoglobin in your blood, which allows red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout your body. A lack of iron means you become anemic and feel tired, easily out of breath, and weak.
In the body of the average adult at any given time contains from 3 to 5 grams iron, which is from 3000 to 5000 milligrams. This is somewhat ironic, given how iron toxicity works. Too much iron can make you sick or even kill you, which is why iron supplements warn against taking too much. Iron toxicity can be defined as a dose of as little as 60 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, and 120 mg/kg may be considered fatal.
North Americans have the highest average body weight at about 80 kg , While in Asia, it's 60 kg. This means that a lethal dose of iron can range from 7,200 to 9,600 mg, and a toxic dose is half that, from 3,600 to 4,800 mg. This means that the average person contains enough iron, between 3,000 mg and 5,000 mg, to cause iron poisoning in someone else. Let this be a lesson to all cannibals.
From a more practical standpoint, if you want to use this iron, it's potentially worth knowing that your average nail weighs 0.79 grams and contains 97% iron , if it's made of steel. So, about 0.76 grams per nail, which means that 6.5 nails could be made from human iron.
9. 10% by mass of hydrogen
The mass of a person is slightly less 10% hydrogen . Most of it is contained in water and other chemical compounds; of course, we are by no means just walking bags of flammable gas. But if it was gas, what could be done with it? If it's 10% by mass, then for a 150-pound person, that's 15 pounds of hydrogen. If convert the mass of hydrogen If we were to convert pounds of hydrogen to cubic feet of hydrogen, 15 pounds of the stuff would be converted to an impressive 2,868 cubic feet. But what does that mean?
Hydrogen was once used for airships because it provides better lift than even helium. Yes, it is also highly flammable and explosive, so it too was abandoned. But hydrogen offers 68 pounds of lift per 1,000 cubic feet gas. This means that the 2,868 cubic feet of hydrogen you can find in a 150-pound person has enough lift to lift 195 pounds off the ground. So, you have enough hydrogen in your own body to fly away. At least in theory.
8. 140 grams of sulfur
Sulfur isn't an element that people tend to look for very often, you don't see many sulfur-boosting recipes advertised as health foods, but at any given time, you have 140 grams of it in your body substances . . Sulfur is actually important for building and maintaining DNA and therefore to combat certain types of cancer.
Sulfur is perhaps best known for its odor, which is said to resemble the smell of rotten eggs. This is because eggs contain large amounts of sulfur, about 50 milligrams in the white and another 25 milligrams in the yolk. This adds up to 75 milligrams per egg, and if you have 140 grams, or 140,000 milligrams, you're carrying the sulfur equivalent of 1,867 eggs.
In terms of what else sulfur can be used for, we can stay on the farm near the chicken eggs and look at the crop. Sulfur can be used as a pesticide, and at the lower end of the scale, you need 10 pounds , To cover an acre of farmland to protect it from pests, you need to apply sulfur. At 454 grams per pound and 43,560 square feet per acre, you have enough sulfur to treat approximately 1,452 square feet of crops.
7.200 grams of sodium
We've probably all heard about the dangers of a high-sodium diet and know we should watch our salt intake just to be safe. It would be very rare for someone to experience sodium deficiency, but you need a certain amount to help with nerve impulses and muscle use . For a 50-kilogram person in the body near 200 grams or 40 teaspoons salt. How much salt is this?
Based on the nutrition information Leys provides, you could add salt 147 eight-ounce bags regular potato chips with that much sodium. If you're more of a fast food fan, you can season them with impressive 198 Big Macs from McDonalds.
Of course, that's a 50-kilogram person, which is about 110 pounds, and as we've already seen, the average American weighs 80 kilograms, meaning most people have about 320 grams of sodium, or 64 teaspoons. That would put you at 235 bags of Lays or 317 Big Macs.
6.4 grams of sugar.
So, it's not an element, but we've covered salt, so why not look at sugar? It's also an important part of maintaining health. The average person at any given time in the blood contains about four grams of sugar . It's surprising that it's so low since glucose is what your cells use for energy, but it shows how efficiently your body uses energy.
Consider how much sugar a person consumes per day, and the figure becomes much more impressive. For example, a can of cola contains 39 grams of sugar , which is almost ten times more than what is contained in your body at any given time. You will need three cups of Cheerios , to get that much sugar.
5.0.2 mg gold
Who wouldn't want a little more gold? The price fluctuates from day to day, but these days, a gram of gold averages around $50 per gram. That means a mg of gold is worth about a nickel. And right now, as a living, breathing human being, inside you 0.2 milligrams of gold , which is worth about a penny. In fact, it's a little more than the gold you'd find in a cell phone, which contains 0.034 grams , and people constantly collect it to obtain gold.
The small amount of gold inside you plays an important role in joint health as well as in the transmission of electrical signals.
A standard gold bar, those bricks you see in movies stacked in bank vaults, is called a bullion bar. good delivery and weighs 400 troy ounces, or about 12.4414 kg. That's 12,441,400 mg. At 0.2 mg of gold per person, you could make your own Good Delivery bar if you collected gold from 62,207,000 people.
4. 1% of your weight is phosphorus
Phosphorus is another one of those chemicals that can be very dangerous, but we still need a small amount to survive and be healthy. By weight, we have about 1% phosphorus , so a 150-pound person would have 1.5 pounds, or 680 grams, of phosphorus, and an 80-pound person would have 800 grams, or 1.77 pounds. It is needed for cell growth and maintenance, as well as DNA production. Ironically, white phosphorus can be deadly when dose from 50 to 100 milligrams , which is obviously much less than what is already contained within you.
Yellow phosphorus was once used to light matches anywhere in the world. 1 milligram per match head . That's equivalent to 680,000 to 800,000 match heads if you collected all the phosphorus in the human body.
3.95 grams of chlorine
Chlorine isn't a substance you'd ever want to put into your body, but you do need some of it in other chemical compounds. At any given time, you have about 95 grams Chlorine. It's found in your blood, bones, and tissues, and you get it into your body through sodium chloride, better known as salt.
The most common use of chlorine outside the human body is in the form of bleach, but bleach is only a dilute solution. In fact, bleach contains only 5,25% chlorine , and one gallon is equal to approximately 3785.41 grams. This is a measurement for water, so our numbers will be a little shaky due to the density, but they should be approximate.
At 5.25%, this means a gallon of bleach contains approximately 198 grams of pure chlorine. Based on a body weight of 95 grams, you contain enough chlorine to make half a bottle of bleach.
2. 16 kg of carbon
When it comes to human mass, after oxygen, you're mostly carbon. A little less 23% of your body — is carbon, and for a person weighing 80 kg, that means a total of 16 kg. One of the most common uses of carbon in everyday life is pencils, which use carbon in the form of graphite. Even the wood of a pencil contains carbon, slightly more than graphite. This varies from brand to brand, but it is estimated that at least one type of pencil contains 3.17 grams carbon on a pencil.
If you were so inclined to sacrifice your body for the benefit of pencils in the future, you would donate the equivalent of 5,047 pencils of carbon.
1.1 kg of calcium
You need calcium for your bones and teeth—we've all been told this since we were little. Milk is the most common source of calcium for many of us, and as mammals, we're more or less adapted to eating milk as our primary food source from birth.
Your body contains about 1.5% of calcium, so an 80-kilogram person spends about one kilogram pure calcium. An eight-ounce glass of milk contains only 300 milligrams calcium, meaning you'd need to drink just over three to get your daily requirement of 1,000 milligrams. But that also means you're already walking around with about 3,333 cups of calcium, all from milk.
If you don't like milk and prefer processed cheese, a slice of Velveeta, labeled as a good source of calcium, contains 160 milligrams . This means your body contains the equivalent of 6,250 slices of Velveeta.