Medical Facts
Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph.
During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.
Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water.
Most men have erections every hour to hour and a half during sleep.
Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206.
Humans shed and regrow outer skin cells about every 27 days.
One child goes blind every minute.
Some unusual phobias are aerophobia (fear of the air), chromatophobia (fear of colors), spectrophobia (fear of mirrors), odontophobia (fear of teeth) and basiphobia (fear of walking).
By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds.
The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.
Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream.
A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
About one third of the human race has 20-20 vision.
More than 6,000 people with pillow-related injuries check into U.S. emergency rooms every year.
Nine out of 10 people are right-handed, 8 out of 10 people are right-footed, 7 out of 10 people are right-eyed and 6 out of 10 people are right-eared.
Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life.
Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.
Caffeine is the most widely used behaviorally active drug in the world.
As you age, the amount of rapid eye movement ("dream") sleep you have decreases.
Young adults spend about 20-25% of sleep time in REM sleep.
In 1863, Adolf von Baeyer synthesized barbituric acid, the first barbiturate. He named this chemical after his girlfriend Barbara.
It is estimated that more than seven million people become blind every year.
Cataract comes from the Latin word "cataracta" meaning "waterfall" because looking through a waterfall is similar to the vision that results from cataracts.
Feet have 500,000 sweat glands and can produce more than a pint of sweat a day. With that kind of sweat-producing power it's no wonder that your gym shoes have a stench that can peel paint.
Neurons continue to grow throughout human life.
Women's hearts beat faster than men's. The main reason for this is simply that on average women tend to be smaller than men and have less mass to pump blood to.
Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions.
Smells and tastes are experienced in approximately 1% of all dreams.
The first lobotomy in the US was performed by Walter Freeman in 1936.
Sleepwalking is also known as "somnambulism"; sleeptalking is also known as "somniloquy."
In a 7-year study, people who ate at least one serving of seafood once a week had a 30% lower risk of developing dementia than those who ate less seafood.
Approximately 50% of the population of the US is nearsighted.
The word "hypnosis" comes from the Greek word meaning "sleep."
When asleep, humans spend 23.1% of the time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
In the US each year, 1.4 million people have cataract surgery, making it the most common operation.
An estimated 180 million people worldwide are visually disabled.
More than 28 million Americans (about 10% of the population) have hearing impairments.
Approximately 450 million people suffer from neuropsychiatric (mental and behavioral) disorders.
The most common blood type in the world is Type O.
The adrenal glands change size throughout life.
Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness in the US. Approximately 5,400 Americans go blind from glaucoma each year.
Approximately 24.5% of people between the ages of 53 and 97 years have an impaired sense of smell.
Sleepwalking affects 2-14% of all children and 1.6-2.5% of all adults.
Adolf Eugen Fick coined the term "contact lens". He made the first contact lens for vision correction from glass in 1887.
The word "neurology" was coined by Thomas Willis in 1681.
Morphine, the analgesic (pain reliever) drug from the opium poppy, is named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus.
Each year in the US, about 200,000 people require hospitalization for head injury and 52,000 people die due to head injuries.
Most people dream about 5 times during each 8-hour period of sleep. Based on this number, people have about 1,825 dreams every year.
People typically blink about 15 times per minute. If you are awake for 16 hours each day, then you blink approximately 14,400 each day.
Head injuries account for 62% of bicycle-related deaths.
Schizophrenia affects about 1 out of every 100 people.
The term "dendrite" was introduced by C. Golgi in about 1870.
Approximately 8% of all males and about 0.5% of all females are color blind.
The word "doctor" comes from the Latin word "doceo" that means "to teach."
The word "dendrite" (the part of a neuron that brings information toward the cell body) comes from the Greek word meaning "tree."
The country with the most neurologists per person is Lithuania where there are approximately 6,240 people for every neurologist.
The word "physician" comes from the Greek word "physis" meaning "nature."
In the US, 50 billion aspirin tablets are consumed each year.
Sounds as loud as 130 dB can cause pain.
Parkinson's disease affects 1-3% of people over the age of 65 years and 10% of those over 80 years.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 500,000 people in the US exhibit symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the US. The number one cause of blindness in the US is macular degeneration.
In the US, 10% of children and adolescents suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause impairment. However, only 20% of these children and adolescents receive mental health services.
Epilepsy was once called "morbus Herculeus" because it was thought that Hercules had epilepsy. Epilepsy was later called "morbus sacer" which means "sacred disease."
In the US, one third of all adults complain about sleep problems.
The word "cochlea" comes from the Latin word meaning "snail shell."
The part of the brain called the "amygdala" gets its name from the Greek word for "almond" because its shape.
Every 33 minutes someone dies in an alcohol-related traffic accident.
About 4 million people in the US have Alzheimer's disease.
Almost 50% of the people in the US wear eyeglasses. The total spent for eyeglasses in the US is $13 billion.
The iris, the colored part of your eye, gets its name from the Greek word meaning "rainbow." In Greek mythology, the goddess of the rainbow is named Iris.
Approximately 600,000 people in the US have a stroke every year, and 167,000 die from it. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the US.
The word "retina" comes from the Latin word meaning "net."