• Question: What percentage of our body is made up of cells ?

    Asked by anon-210403 to Stuart on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Stuart Higgins

      Stuart Higgins answered on 12 Mar 2019:


      That’s a really good question, I’d never thought of that before.

      I can’t really give you an answer because it’s not very clear how many cells there are in the human body. Some scientists suggest that there are maybe 30-40 trillion cells in human body, but then there’s loads of non-cell stuff too, including the bits between the cell (called extracellular matrix), and lots of water too.

      I also found one report where they suggested that there are more bacteria cells inside our body than human cells! This could important to understand how some diseases work. But again bacteria cells are much smaller than human cells, so they don’t make up that much of a percentage.

      BBC News article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43674270

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