Ever wondered how much your immune system weights? Yeah, me neither.. till I stumbled this interesting scientific paper 😂
The total mass, number, and distribution of immune cells in the human body
Let's make things a bit fun first!
Before reading any further take a guess and type how heavy, in grams or whatever, you think the average immune system is in the comments below!
Let's see how close you get!
Ok...Ready?
Scroll down to check the answer
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The Answer
So, the quick answer is this:
Our findings show that an average individual’s immune system consists of approximately 1.8 trillion cells, weighing around 1.2 kg.
Ha! 1.2 kg! That's 2.646 pounds in case you are a total retard unfamiliar with the metric system!
That's definitely way more then I expected! I took a wild guess before reading the paper and I thought it would be something along 50 to 100 g at best!
And here's by type of cells
Lymphocytes make up 40% of the total number of immune cells and 15% of their mass.
Similarly, neutrophils account for comparable proportions.
Notably, macrophages constitute 10% of immune cells but contribute nearly 50% of the total cellular mass due to their large size.
*** A T Cell, a type of white cell (public domain)***
Apparently, despite the plethora of studies on the human immune system there is not much research on the mass and distribution of the various immune cells:
Despite the wealth of studies investigating the human immune system from different angles, there is a need for a comprehensive census of the distribution and mass of the various immune cell types. Previous studies have either focused on specific tissues or cell types (1) or included immune cells in the overall tally (2–4) without detailed resolution.
As for what the researchers considered "average" this is the answer:
We utilized the standard reference human, historically characterized as a male between 20 and 30 y old, weighing 73 kg, and having a height of 176 cm. To qualify our standard reference, we added the term “healthy,” as the individual’s health affects the immune cell population
Ha ha! Toxic masculinity once again ❤️🤪
Disclaimer: I only skimmed through the first parts of the paper so dunno how legit it is, plus this field is miles away from my expertise. So take the info above with a pinch of salt!
References & Further Reading
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