What are humans made of?

 

At the very basic, we think we are made of flesh, blood, bones, and hairs. But flesh, blood, bones, and hair too are made of other building blocks.

In fact, 99.95% of your body weight is made of just eleven elements. Among them, the four major elements like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen makes up 96% of our body. Added to the list are calcium, phosphorous, potassium, Sulphur, sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium and it forms 99.95% of our body. But there are traces of other elements too, these include iron, iodine, zinc, selenium, copper, molybdenum, even gold and others.

Now, some of these names might be new to some of us, especially if we have not taken science after high school.

Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/5pcIO8PCOnk

Among all the elements, major ones are called the macro nutrients whereas those appearing only at the level of parts per million or less are referred to as micronutrients. These nutrients perform various functions, including cell structures, the building of bones, regulating the body's pH, carrying charge, and driving chemical reactions among others. 

Given that our body is made of many different elements, this is the reason why we need Macro nutrients and micronutrients for a well-functioning body and thus to stay healthy.

You might have heard that nearly 60% of your body is water. And we know water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O). So hydrogen and oxygen forms a major chunk of our body. Also human body like all lifeforms have carbon. Carbon atoms being 12 times the weight of hydrogen atoms, comes second to oxygen by weight.

So if we segregate elements in our body, it is 65 per cent oxygen, 18 per cent carbon and 10.2% hydrogen. Other elements like nitrogen forms about 3.1%, a pinch of calcium for the bones forms about 1.6 %, 1.2 % is phosphorous, and around 0.25% is potassium and Sulphur. With very small percentages of sodium, chlorine and magnesium, and we hit the 99.95 % mark explained above.

Although some people argue that, human body is much more than just these elements and substance, which is quite true, but we cannot deny the fact, what we are made of.

You might have herd, we are what you eat. All of us were born at just 2-5 Kg, but as we grow we accumulate mass. All the extra mass we build up over time comes through the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breadth. So, each atom we are made of has coem from somewhere. The atoms that forms our body were previously in the air, plants, animals and minerals. An average person’s body is composed of about 7 billion billion billion atoms. So the atom we are made of must have been in many previous and present living things, including trees, grass, insects or dogs, or even in dinosaurs and our ancestors.

Now, that we know we are made of what we eat, and we just require all elements in our body to be healthy, let’s eat the good and the healthy.