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’s 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.
