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There are relatively few things in our body that can be unpleasant to think about: sweat, dirt, pus, undigested food.
Did you know that there are more bacteria in our body than cells? And that mites live on your eyelashes?
1. Mites (Demodex) on the eyelashes
Mites live on your eyelashes, and the older you are and the oilier your skin, the more likely this is. It has been found that mites, specifically Demodex folliculorum, live on the eyelashes of more than 80 percent of people over the age of 60.
Demodex mites are facial mites, and if you can see them with the naked eye, you will see them living on your eyelashes and hair follicles. In addition, up to 25 mites can live on a single eyelash follicle.
Although the fact that they exist on your face is creepy enough, they are usually harmless, but in people who are sensitive to them they can cause an allergic reaction.
2. Earwax
Many people turn to professional earwax removal treatments, even though our ear canal is a self-cleaning organ in the body.
Earwax is an oily, wax-like substance produced by glands inside the ear canal. It protects the ears.
It prevents foreign objects from entering the ears, including dust and insects. Earwax also helps keep the ears moist, protects the ear canal from irritation, and has antibacterial properties.
Earwax consists of dead skin cells, saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, alcohols, squalene, and cholesterol. On average we produce about 12–20 mg of earwax per month.
3. Lipoma (wen)
Our body stores energy in fat cells, but sometimes fat cells grow where they shouldn’t. This leads to the formation of fatty tumors, also called lipomas. Although many people find a wen disgusting, it is usually quite harmless.
They are small masses of fat cells under the skin between the skin and muscles. Such lumps are soft and mobile to the touch. A lipoma usually does not grow more than a few centimeters and most often occurs on the neck, shoulders, arms, upper back, thighs, and buttocks.
4. Mucus secretion
Mucus, snot, “boogers” — whatever we call it, it exists and there are reasons for it.
Mucus lines the inside of the nose, mouth, sinuses, throat, lungs, and the gastrointestinal tract, and it’s always there, not only when you have a cold. Our body produces about 1–2 liters of mucus every day, including a new batch produced by your nose every 20 minutes.
Mucus acts as a moisturizer and without it our body tissues would dry out. Because it is viscous, it also acts as a collector of “waste” including bacteria, pollen, dirt, fungi, smoke, and other particles we breathe in, preventing them from attacking our body.
5. Bacteria
There is far less human in a healthy human body than you might think. Our body contains 10 times more microorganisms than human cells, about 100 trillion bacteria in total, and they inhabit every corner of our body.
Less than 1 percent of bacteria in the human body can cause disease, while others help it perform important functions. For example, the bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus, used in the production of fermented dairy products, help digest food and fight harmful microbes.
6. Gas in the stomach
All people release gas and burp. If you eat, you produce gas when bacteria in the digestive system break down food. On average we release gas 14 to 23 times a day, roughly once an hour.
Gas and belching contain carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and sometimes methane and sometimes sulfur. Some foods cause us to produce more gas, including those high in fiber and dairy products.
Foods that contain wheat or milk also contribute to the production of gas, belching, and bloating because our body cannot properly digest them. But most often gas is caused by swallowed air.
While some research suggests that your stomach can stretch and hold more than 3 liters of food and drink, it may spontaneously rupture if you try to hold 5 liters.
If your stomach tries to “close the gate,” food and drink will not pass into the intestines but instead will come back up, sometimes forcefully. Vomiting is controlled by the “vomiting center” in the brain and can be caused by a range of causes, including poisoning, infections, certain illnesses and pregnancy, and certain treatments such as chemotherapy.
If you are unable or unwilling to induce vomiting, your body will try to cope with the unwanted stomach contents. In this case, leaks can form in the walls of the stomach that allow partially digested food to escape. And then vomiting won’t seem so disgusting.
8. Tonsil stones
Tonsil stones, also known as tonsilloliths, are a mixture of bacteria, dead cells, and mucus that have accumulated in the crevices of the tonsils.
If you suffer from chronic tonsillitis or have had strep throat, you are more likely to get your tonsils clogged. They are also common in people with dry mouths.
Some people don’t notice them, while others feel uncomfortable when swallowing. They look like white lumps at the back of the throat. Because bacteria love to feed on what these plugs are made of, they often lead to bad breath.
You can try to remove them by rinsing or by vacuum suctioning performed by an ENT. The only way to get rid of them completely, used as a last resort, is tonsil removal.
9. Feces
When we eat and drink, it takes only a few hours for our body to extract the necessary vitamins and nutrients. The rest needs to be eliminated.
Our intestines are made up of the small intestine, the large intestine, and the rectum. The small intestine is a tube about 6 meters long and 2.5 cm in diameter, while the large intestine is about 1.5 meters long and 7.6 cm in diameter. And it’s all full of waste.
Our stool is made from undigested food, but also from mucus, bacteria, and dead cells, which give it a brown color. With normal peristalsis, stool is about 75 percent water and we excrete about 85–225 grams of stool per day.
10. Stomach acid that can dissolve metal
Our digestive system is saturated with juices that break down food. When hydrogen combines with chlorine inside the stomach, it forms hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is strong enough to dissolve metal, so why doesn’t the stomach get dissolved?
This is due to the mucus that lines the walls of the stomach and protects it from being digested.
