Life cannot exist without water. Next to air, water is the most essential for all organisms. Without food, a human can live for more than a month, but without water, it cannot live more than few days.
Water constitutes approx. 70% of the body weight in adults, whereas in a child it is approx. 90%.
Water does not contain carbohydrates, fat or protein and has no calories. It may contain some minerals.
Main functions of water in human body are as follows:
1. It helps regulate body temperature thru perspiration.
2. It helps transportation of nutrients, hormones, drugs and oxygen etc. to various organs of the body as per requirement.
3. It carries waste material from the body including carbon dioxide, uric acid etc.
4. Water helps lubricating joints of the body.
5. It helps as cushion to the body organs. During pregnancy, much of water is used as amniotic fluid in amniotic sack to ensure that fetus is protected in the womb.
6. Water helps controlling blood pressure by balancing body’s electrolytes.
7. Water keeps body organs including mouth, eyes and skin moist.
8. Water helps to alleviate constipation by moving food thru intestinal tract.
Proper hydration of body is required to ensure good health. Dehydration leads to various chronic illnesses and many more diseases. It also increases risk of abnormal heart rhythm. One should drink at least nine to twelve glasses of water a day in normal conditions. Drinking two to three glasses of water in the morning increases metabolic rate and thus promotes weight loss. Water requirement of the body varies on different situations.
Who needs to drink more water?
1. Those people who are on high protein diet require more water to flush out extra uric acid produced by digestion of the protein. Low consumption of carbohydrates during high protein diet regime helps breaking fat cells in the body and thus producing toxins in the form of ketones. One needs more water to eliminate these toxins from the body.
2. People on high fiber diet also require excessive intake of water as fibers absorb more fluid.
3. Some diseases like vomit and diarrhea lead to severe dehydration of body. Drinking excessive water is required in such circumstances to keep the body hydrated.
4. If you are living in hot conditions or warm atmosphere. There will be more perspiration to keep the body cool. You need to increase the intake of water in such situation.
5. Similarly if you are doing exercise or other type of physical activity including walking, running, cycling or any such exercise, there will be more sweating from body leading to loss of water. One must replenish by drinking more water.
6. During pregnancy body requires more water for various functions of the body. a) Firstly to carry nutrients to the baby water requirement is increased. b) Secondly there are more chances of mother acquiring urinary tract infection (UTI) and to prevent from infection, frequent flushing the system is required. This requires more water. c) For the protection of the fetus in uterus, amniotic sack contains amniotic fluid, which, in turn, regularly needs more water. d) Excessive intake of water also protects mother from hypertension during pregnancy. e) In case there is dehydration due to loss of water during 8th and 9th month of pregnancy, it may lead to premature labor thus causing harm to the baby. Hence adequate intake of water is required for the whole period of pregnancy.
Drinking water should always be cleaned and made free of contaminants. For purification of water, reverse osmosis systems are considered effective which can remove as much as 99% of all contaminants from the water supplied at the homes.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
HUMAN BODY – A MARVEL OF NATURE
Human body is the best creation of the nature. It is considered to be perfect manifestation of Gods’ creativity and innovation. Here are some facts about the human body.
It consists of tiny units called Cells. Body contains approx. 50 to 100 trillion cells.
The largest cell is a female ovum (egg cell), which has 1/180 inch diameter and the smallest cell is a sperm, found in male semen. Weight of one egg cell is equivalent to the weight of 175,000 sperm cells.
Each human organism begins life with a single cell. A fertilized egg is very small in size, not even visible thru naked eyes. It remains as a single cell for approx. 30 minutes. It then starts multiplying from one to two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four and so on.
Cells further grow and form together different types of tissues like muscles, nerves, bones, cartilage, arteries and veins. These tissues together form organs like lungs, liver, heart, brain, kidneys, etc. Organs working together for specific purpose are called systems. Systems working together form whole body.
Genes inherited from parents are made of DNA. There are 46 chromosomes in each cell.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but in adults some are joined together to make it to 206 bones. In all there are 100 joints, 600 muscles, 22 internal organs and 12 systems in body. These systems are circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, excretory system, immune system, lymphatic system, muscular system, nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory system, skeletal system and urinary system. Reproductive and urinary systems in male and female are of different types.
Every moment new cells are being formed. Body replaces approx. 1 billion cells every hour.
Human blood has approx. 20 -25 trillion RBC, which is 25% of total body cells. In one micro liter of blood there are 4 to 6 million RBC, 4000 to 11000 WBC and 150,000 to 400,000 platelets. Each red blood corpuscles (RBC) contains 270 million hemoglobin biomolecules. Body produces 2.4 million RBC every second.
Heart weighs approx. 250 – 300 gm. It begins to beat about four weeks after conception. It is fully developed by eight weeks. Heart beats approx. 103680 times a day. It beats almost 2.6 billion times till seventy years of age and pumps 120 million liter of blood. Blood travels 168 million miles (270 million Km/day).
Brain is the most complicated organ of the body and its weight is approx. 1.35 kg. It contains 85% water.
Skin is the largest organ of the body, approx. 25 sq. ft. in area. Body produces new layer of skin every 30 minutes.
Small intestine is the longest part of the body, approx. 23 ft. in length. Digestive system processes 7.8 lb. (3.5 kg.) waste per day.
Lungs take 438 cu. Ft. air per day. Everyday breathing is approx. 22000 times.
There are 9000 taste buds mostly on the surface of the tongue.
Eyes blink approx. 10 million times a year.
Water content of human body is 90% at birth, while it reduces to approx. 70% in adults and drops further to 50% in old age. Water keeps a person alive.
Healthy person consumes approx. 2.3 liter water per day and the same is to be replenished for the normal functioning of digestive system and blood formation. Intake of water increases during summer and also during sporting activities. A person drinks approx. 16000 gallons water in life time.
Element wise in body oxygen content is 65% of body mass while carbon and hydrogen are 18% and 10% respectively. There are 3 more major elements of body, namely nitrogen – 3%, calcium – 1.5% and phosphorus – 1%. These six elements constitute almost 98.5% of body mass.
There are various minor elements like potassium – 0.35%, sulfur – 0.25%, sodium – 0.15%, magnesium – 0.05% and also copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, manganese, cobalt, iron, with a total of approx. 0.7%.
Some elements are in traces like, lithium, strontium, aluminum, silicon, lead, vanadium, arsenic, and bromine.
Body has enough iron to make a 3 inch nail, sulfur to kill all the fleas of an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorus to make 2200 match heads and water to fill a 10 gallon tank.
Most of the time this body operates flawlessly. The human machinery is so perfect; its immune system is the most powerful protector. Body is continuously repairing and defending itself. But sometimes the magnitude of injury or strength of microbial invader is greater than the defending system and gets ill.
Laughter reduces stress level and strengthens immune system.
Each sq. inch of human body has approx. 32 million bacteria on it.
It consists of tiny units called Cells. Body contains approx. 50 to 100 trillion cells.
The largest cell is a female ovum (egg cell), which has 1/180 inch diameter and the smallest cell is a sperm, found in male semen. Weight of one egg cell is equivalent to the weight of 175,000 sperm cells.
Each human organism begins life with a single cell. A fertilized egg is very small in size, not even visible thru naked eyes. It remains as a single cell for approx. 30 minutes. It then starts multiplying from one to two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four and so on.
Cells further grow and form together different types of tissues like muscles, nerves, bones, cartilage, arteries and veins. These tissues together form organs like lungs, liver, heart, brain, kidneys, etc. Organs working together for specific purpose are called systems. Systems working together form whole body.
Genes inherited from parents are made of DNA. There are 46 chromosomes in each cell.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but in adults some are joined together to make it to 206 bones. In all there are 100 joints, 600 muscles, 22 internal organs and 12 systems in body. These systems are circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, excretory system, immune system, lymphatic system, muscular system, nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory system, skeletal system and urinary system. Reproductive and urinary systems in male and female are of different types.
Every moment new cells are being formed. Body replaces approx. 1 billion cells every hour.
Human blood has approx. 20 -25 trillion RBC, which is 25% of total body cells. In one micro liter of blood there are 4 to 6 million RBC, 4000 to 11000 WBC and 150,000 to 400,000 platelets. Each red blood corpuscles (RBC) contains 270 million hemoglobin biomolecules. Body produces 2.4 million RBC every second.
Heart weighs approx. 250 – 300 gm. It begins to beat about four weeks after conception. It is fully developed by eight weeks. Heart beats approx. 103680 times a day. It beats almost 2.6 billion times till seventy years of age and pumps 120 million liter of blood. Blood travels 168 million miles (270 million Km/day).
Brain is the most complicated organ of the body and its weight is approx. 1.35 kg. It contains 85% water.
Skin is the largest organ of the body, approx. 25 sq. ft. in area. Body produces new layer of skin every 30 minutes.
Small intestine is the longest part of the body, approx. 23 ft. in length. Digestive system processes 7.8 lb. (3.5 kg.) waste per day.
Lungs take 438 cu. Ft. air per day. Everyday breathing is approx. 22000 times.
There are 9000 taste buds mostly on the surface of the tongue.
Eyes blink approx. 10 million times a year.
Water content of human body is 90% at birth, while it reduces to approx. 70% in adults and drops further to 50% in old age. Water keeps a person alive.
Healthy person consumes approx. 2.3 liter water per day and the same is to be replenished for the normal functioning of digestive system and blood formation. Intake of water increases during summer and also during sporting activities. A person drinks approx. 16000 gallons water in life time.
Element wise in body oxygen content is 65% of body mass while carbon and hydrogen are 18% and 10% respectively. There are 3 more major elements of body, namely nitrogen – 3%, calcium – 1.5% and phosphorus – 1%. These six elements constitute almost 98.5% of body mass.
There are various minor elements like potassium – 0.35%, sulfur – 0.25%, sodium – 0.15%, magnesium – 0.05% and also copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, manganese, cobalt, iron, with a total of approx. 0.7%.
Some elements are in traces like, lithium, strontium, aluminum, silicon, lead, vanadium, arsenic, and bromine.
Body has enough iron to make a 3 inch nail, sulfur to kill all the fleas of an average dog, carbon to make 900 pencils, fat to make 7 bars of soap, phosphorus to make 2200 match heads and water to fill a 10 gallon tank.
Most of the time this body operates flawlessly. The human machinery is so perfect; its immune system is the most powerful protector. Body is continuously repairing and defending itself. But sometimes the magnitude of injury or strength of microbial invader is greater than the defending system and gets ill.
Laughter reduces stress level and strengthens immune system.
Each sq. inch of human body has approx. 32 million bacteria on it.
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