Which organ in the human body is the largest? What does the largest organ consist of, what functions does it perform? Interesting facts about the largest human organ

Do you know what the largest organ has a person? Let's find out together.

Content

The human body is a single mechanism consisting of various details - organs. Each of them performs a certain work, due to which the uninterrupted functioning of the whole organism is ensured.

Which of our organs is the largest and most important? Let's carefully study this issue.

Which organ in the human body is the largest, what does it consist of?

The largest organ in area and mass is our skin. Probably not many even suspect that skin is also an organ (the same as, for example, lungs or heart). Nevertheless, this is precisely the organ (albeit located outside the body), moreover, the largest in both occupied area and mass relative to the total body weight. After all, if, purely hypothetically, separate the skin from the body and put it on a flat surface, then it can take about 2 m² in the area, and its weight is approximately 1/5 of the entire human mass.

It should be noted that the uniqueness of the skin is not limited to these outstanding parameters: everyone can boast of their individual skin characteristics - a shade, humidity, density and fat content.

All vertebrates are covered with skin to protect against adverse environmental factors, as well as to participate in all kinds of functions such as maintaining the desired body temperature, metabolic processes, breathing and the like.

The skin of three layers consists:

epidermis -a kind of stop control for pathogenic bacteria and fungi and a guardian of elasticity (contains keratinized dead cells)
dermis - on top is covered with connective tissue, from below - collagen fibers are located (contains blood vessels and nerve fibers, is responsible for the reaction to mechanical exposure, temperature, pain, and so on, provides both flexibility and sensitivity)
subcutaneous fat - subcutaneous fat (protects the glands - sebaceous and sweat, as well as the roots of the hair).

What functions does the largest organ of a person perform?

Skin is an organ working in multitasking mode:

He is an active participant in water-salt metabolism (ensures the removal of metabolic products that are harmful and unnecessary to the body).
It represents one of the senses - touch (through which we interact with the outside world).
It protects the human body from many dangers (ultraviolet radiation, bacteria, viruses, microbes, chemical elements, as well as mechanical damage).
The image component (as of the state and appearance of the skin is judged by our health and attractiveness).

Interesting facts about the skin

1 cm ² of skin contains 5 thousand sensory points, 6 million cells, 100 sweat and 15 sebaceous glands.
The difference in the thickness of the skin in one person can reach 4 mm (up to 5 mm - on the sole and up to 1 mm - on the eyelid).
Throughout life, a person on average loses about 18 kg of skin (the old one dies and exfoliates, and the new grows). Monthly we lose on average 40 thousand dead skin cells.
The color of human skin (as well as eyes and hair) depends on the amount of melanin produced by the body.
On the skin of a person is from three dozen to five hundred moles (pigmented neoplasms, the number of which depends on the length of the telomeres - particles of the chromosome).
Freckles turn pale with age and almost completely disappear by forty years of age due to a decrease in the amount of melanin produced.
Sweat that protrudes on the skin protects our body from critical overheating. Only the lips and partially do not sweat - the genitals. During the day, a person can lose in the form of sweat up to 3 liters of liquid.
Proteins are responsible for the elasticity, youth and humidity of the skin.