• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

This Is How Many Cells There Are In The Human Body

September 19, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

The human body has a lot going on, and as such it checks out that it would be made up of a fair few cells. From brain cells and blood cells, to skin cells and stem cells, each type is finetuned to perform a specific task, which, when combined, keep us alive and functioning. But exactly how many are there?

According to a new analysis of over 1,500 scientific papers, there are a gargantuan 36 trillion cells in the average adult male, an equally impressive 28 trillion in average adult females, and a still very substantial 17 trillion in an average 10-year-old child. In short, a lot of cells.

Advertisement

Unexpectedly, the researchers, who hail from institutions in Germany, Canada, Spain, and the US, also found that the mass of the smallest cells combined is about the same as the joint mass of larger cells.

“These patterns are suggestive of a whole-organism trade-off between cell size and count and imply the existence of cell-size homeostasis across cell types,” they write in their paper.

To reach these conclusions, the team conducted a comprehensive study of previously published data, looking specifically at what types of cells there are, how many of each type, as well as their mass and size. They identified more than 1,200 different groups, comprising 400 known cell types across 60 tissues.

Using three reference anatomical models – a 70-kilogram (154-pound) adult male, a 60-kilogram (132-pound) adult female, and a 32-kilogram (71 pound) child – they then estimated the total number of cells in each body type.

Advertisement

This has been done before – and estimates have been in the same ballpark – but research into the relationship between cell size and count has never been formally examined over the whole human body as it has been here.

“You would guess that there’s an average cell size and that we’d mostly be made up of this average cell size,” study author Eric Galbraith told New Scientist. “But in fact, this isn’t true.”

Instead, there seems to be an inverse relationship between cell size and count, whereby we have fewer larger cells and a greater number of smaller cells to maintain balance across cell types.

“In our bodies we have roughly the same amount, in terms of mass, of very small cells as well as very big cells and all the cell sizes in between,” Galbraith added.

Advertisement

The developmental mechanisms underlying this are still not known, and many questions remain.

“Our holistic perspective of cell size and count has identified some major gaps in knowledge,” the authors conclude, “some of which may have health implications, such as the total body lymphocyte count.” It may also affect what we know about cell growth and proliferation, they continue.

In light of this potential significance, they have made all data from the analysis available online.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Harvard University to end investment in fossil fuels
  2. North Korea says call to declare end of Korean War is premature
  3. Asian stocks fall to near 1-year low as oil prices stoke inflation worries
  4. “Unique” Medieval Christian Art Discovered By Accident In Sudan Desert

Source Link: This Is How Many Cells There Are In The Human Body

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • In 2011, Slavc The Wolf Journeyed 1,000 Miles To Begin Verona’s First Wolf Pack In 100 Years
  • Anyone Know What These Marine “Y-Larvae” Grow Into? Because Scientists Have No Clue
  • C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Closest Earth Approach Is Next Month – Will We See It With The Naked Eye?
  • In 2013, A Volcanic Eruption Wiped Out Life On This Remote Island. Then, Somehow, Plants Reemerged
  • 1-Year-Old Orca Takes Out A Big Fat Seal In This Award-Winning – And Extremely Badass – Photo
  • Saturn And Neptune Will Reach Their Brightest In Days – And Look For Saturn’s Temporary Beauty Spot
  • Reindeer Bring A Gift Greater Than Any Of Santa’s – Hope Of A Stable Climate
  • If Deep-Sea Pressure Can Crush A Human Body, How Do Deep-Sea Creatures Not Implode?
  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version