How old is your body?

acurno

Was watching QI the last night and have read about this strange 'fact' before in various books.
Skin is consistently shedding, blood cells only last a few months, major organs such as heart and liver are renewed every couple of years, full skeleton is replaced every 10 years etc. The number bandied about is every ten years your full body is replaced.
However, I've also read that certain cells last a lifetime, especially nerve cells and possibly the whole neural brain network.

So does anyone know how much of you, is still you, since birth? Any percentage out there we can use for a ten year renewal? 90%? more?

IrishKnight

I'd say very little if anything. Sure there are cells which live for a long time but the idea is you can never grow new ones. The cells themselves would renew the materials within them. At least I'd assume this is what happens, but I could be corrected...

Bloody Nipples

Well a woman is born with all the egg cells she'll ever have so they'll last a lifetime. Neurons generally don't regenerate either.

IrishKnight

Bloody Nipples wrote: »

Well a woman is born with all the egg cells she'll ever have so they'll last a lifetime. Neurons generally don't regenerate either.

This is true, but if you go to the atomic level, I find it unlikely that it is the same atoms from birth to death...

acurno

Okay so the next time I'm in a pub talking trivia I can say that 99.99% of the matter in your body changes every ten years. Good enough for me!!