‘How the hell does the human body even manage to stay alive?’ – 23 medical facts that will blow your tiny yet fiendishly complicated mind

We largely take out bodies for granted unless they go wrong, expecting them to keep doing all the billions of tiny processes they do without any conscious input.

However, when you stop to think about it, the meat and bone machines that carry around our silly brains are absolutely incredible. They’ve been marvelling at this on the AskReddit page after user nathaliuw posted this:

And plenty of people chipped in with thoughts that will make you want to eat an apple and drink a glass of water immediately.

1.

The heart beats continuously for an average of over 80 years, without a single moment of interruption, it’s amazing.’
–Spidermeniusz

2.

‘Your stomach contains acid powerful enough to dissolve some metals.’
–AgitatedPatience5729

3.

‘But not corn for whatever reason.’
–CapaxInfini

4.

‘The fact that our bones can heal themselves, but teeth can’t.’
–htndev

5.

‘The human body is so covered with germs, inside and out, that the minute we die, we begin to rot. That’s because our immune systems work tirelessly to keep bacteria at bay.’
–caliphone

6.

‘The fallopian tubes don’t really communicate with the ovaries. The ovary literally just tosses out an egg into the abdominal cavity with the hope that the tube will catch it. I don’t understand how this is the system that won out.’
–thegeeksshallinherit

7.

‘The human body has about 30-40 trillion cells, all working in synchronicity or we die.’
–Jimehhhhhhh

8.

‘Pregnancy and childbirth in general. My placenta tried to kill me and my baby twice during my pregnancy and my pelvis thought it would be fun to be stiff so my baby had no room to be delivered. Everybody says nature has a plan but I’m convinced nature has no plan at all!’
–Nicestbitchintown

9.

‘I felt this way about breastfeeding. I was absolutely baffled. How the fuck is this earth so heavily populated when a large portion of the population’s survival is dependent on this process that was so fucking hard?!’
–tobmom

10.

‘Hiccuping is the default state of most of the brain, and to prevent that from happening all the time there is a special anti-hiccup module that, if damaged, will leave a person with permanent hiccups for the rest of their life.’
–CrayCrayCat1277

11.

‘By age 30, most people have enough spinal deterioration to be seen on MRI. It always amazes me how much we suffer with back issues from walking upright and we just haven’t adapted properly to that – along with all the other issues we get from posture, like the ability to choke more easily.’
–Namerakable

12.

‘Sharing the air hole with the food hole is a terrible engineering design.’
–therealhairykrishna