• 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

  • The Rise And Fall (And Lamentable Rise) Of The “Alpha Male” Myth
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: How Do Black Holes Shape The Universe?
  • North America’s Smallest Turtle Is The Cutest Thing You’ll Find In A Bog
  • “Unambiguous Signal” To Curb Emissions Now: Long-Lost Aerial Photos Reveal Evolution Of Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse
  • 8 Children Have Been Born With 3 Biological Parents Each After Mitochondrial Transfer
  • First Known Observations Of Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry In Special Particle Decay
  • In 1973, NASA Sent Two Spiders Into Space To See If They Can Spin Webs – And They Learnt A Lot
  • Meet The Many Species Of Freaky Looking “Assassin Spiders” That Only Eat Other Spiders
  • Your Dog’s TV Preferences Might Reveal Their Personality
  • Some Human Gut Bacteria Can Absorb Harmful Toxic “Forever Chemicals” So They Can Be Pooped Out
  • You Could Float Through 10 Countries Before The World’s Most International River Spat You Out
  • Enormous Coronal Hole And Beast-Like Crawling Prominences Dazzle On The Active Sun
  • Dramatic Drone Footage Of Iceland’s Latest Volcanic Eruption Shows An Epic Scene From Hell
  • A Shrimp That Lives In A Tree? Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains Are Home To Some Seriously Strange Wildlife
  • Is NASA’s Claim That Saturn Could Float On Water Really True?
  • Pangea Proxima: This Is What Planet Earth May Look Like 250 Million Years In The Future
  • The Story Of Dogxim, The Fox-Dog Hybrid That Shouldn’t Have Existed
  • Neanderthal Butchers From Different Caves Had Their Own Specialities
  • On July 20, The US And Canada Will Witness The Little-Known Seven Sisters Eclipse
  • First-Ever Giant Ichthyosaur Soft Tissues Preserved In “Extraordinary Fossil” Dating Back 183 Million Years
  • 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