How Much Water is in the Human Body? Image Source: David Wolfe

How Much Water is in the Human Body?

Have you ever wondered how much of your body is water? The percentage of water varies according to your age and gender. Your body is 70 percent water. Is it true? At least, it was true at one point. Depending on a number of factors, your body could be a lot drier than that.

Human babies are about 78 percent water by weight. But within a year, your water content had already immersed below that classic 70 percent factoid your teachers taught you, weighing in at about 65 percent. You maintain that level of moisture throughout your childhood.

Around puberty, when noticeable differences take the stage, the water levels in boys and girls start to differ. Muscle contains more water than fat, and women have more body fat than men. As a result, teenage boys’ bodies are about 60% water, while teenage girls’ bodies are drier at about 55%.

By adulthood, the differences are even more prominent: adult men are around 60% water while adult women average around 50% water. After the age of 50, your body is sapped even more, with men at around 55% water and women at 47% water.

There are other elements in our body at play when it comes to how much of your body is water, or how much water your body contains. The fittest people contain the most water of people their age, while those with the most fat contain the least. Your lungs, brain, heart, liver, and kidneys are the wettest, between 65 and 85% water.

Your blood doesn’t even make to the top 5, i.e. plasma, the liquid portion of blood, maybe 92% water, but it only makes up 55% of your overall blood volume. Bone being the driest parts of the body, it contains about 31% water.

Water plays a vital role in our body, from insulating the organs and lubricating the joins to forming the very building blocks of cells. The water escapes you in sweat and urine helps to cool you off and rid your body of waste.

As mentioned above, according to a study performed by H.H. Mitchell, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the amount of water in the human heart and brain is 73%, the lungs are 83%, muscles and kidneys are 79%, the skin is 64%, and the bones are around 31%.

So no need to get lost in the thoughts of thinking how much of your body is water. Most of your questions have been answered! If you have any queries, let us know in the comment section below.

 

Reference: Curiosity