Skin Fun Facts
Your skin is your largest organ and plays a vital role in detecting hot and cold, regulating your body temperature and protecting your muscles, bones and internal organs from outside infection and disease. But that’s just for starters. There is so much more to your skin than you might think. Here are some of the most interesting facts about your skin:
The average person’s skin covers an area of 2 square meters.
Skin accounts for about 15% of your body weight.
The average adult has approximately 21 square feet of skin, which weighs 9 lbs and contains more than 11 miles of blood vessels.
The average person has about 300 million skin cells. A single square inch of skin has about 19 million cells and up to 300 sweat glands.
Your skin is its thickest on your feet (1.4mm) and thinnest on your eyelids (0.2mm).
The skin renews itself every 28 days.
Your skin constantly sheds dead cells, about 30,000 to 40,000 cells every minute! That’s nearly 9 lbs. per year!
Some sources estimate that more than half of the dust in your home is actually dead skin.
Dead skin comprises about a billion tons of dust in the earth’s atmosphere.
Your skin is home to more than 1,000 species of bacteria.
Skin that is severely damaged may try to heal itself by forming scar tissue, which is different from normal skin tissue because it lacks hair and sweat glands.
Skin can form additional thickness and toughness — a callus — if exposed to repeated friction or pressure.
Some of the nerves in your skin are connected to muscles instead of the brain, sending signals (through the spinal cord) to react more quickly to heat, pain, etc.
Your skin has at least five different types of receptors that respond to pain and touch.
Changes in your skin can sometimes signal changes in your overall health.
These fun facts are just some of the thousands of important aspects of your skin and its health. Forefront Dermatology skin care experts have all of the information you need, including how to best care for the health and beauty of your skin, and the advanced expertise and experience to help you protect it throughout your lifetime.
Skin is the human body’s largest organ (an organ is a group of tissues that work together to perform functions in your body, others include your brain, heart, and lungs).
Your skin performs a range of different functions which include physically protecting your bones, muscles and internal organs, protecting your body from outside diseases, allowing you to feel and react to heat and cold and using blood to regulate your body heat.
The layers of mammal skin include the epidermis, dermis, and subcutis.
The outer layer of your skin is the epidermis, it is found thickest on the palms of your hands and soles of your feet (around 1.5mm thick).
The subcutis (or hypodermis) is the deepest layer of your skin, as well as storing fat, it also contains blood vessels, hair follicle roots, and nerves.
If the skin is severely damaged then it may try to heal by forming scar tissue. Scar tissue is not the same as normal skin tissue, it often appears discolored and lacks sweat glands and hair.
The color of human skin depends on the amount of pigment melanin that the body produces. Small amounts of melanin leads to light skin while large amounts lead to dark skin.
Areas that experience repeated friction or pressure can form tough, thick skin known as a callus. Common examples of calluses can be seen on the hands of tennis players and the fingertips of guitarists.
A large amount of the dust in your home is actually dead skin.
All mammals have some hair on their skin, even if it isn’t easy for you to see.
Rhinoceros are protected by thick skin which can be between 1.5cm and 5cm deep.
Although polar bears have both white and transparent (see-through) fur, their skin is actually black.
Amphibians such as frogs have a unique skin. Rather than drinking water, frogs actually soak it into their body through their skin. They also use their skin to absorb around half the air they need.
Snakes have smooth, dry skin.
A number of different sea creatures, such as sea lice and barnacles, attach themselves to the skin of whales, making it their home.
Some fruits and vegetables are known to have ‘skins’, these include bananas, oranges, apples, and potatoes.