Amazing Facts About Bones

Amazing Facts About Bones

* The smallest bone in the human body is the stirrup bone, the stapes, one of the 3 bones that make up your middle ear; measuring 2-3 millimeters. It is shaped like a "U." It is the innermost bone that receives sound vibrations and passes them along to the cochlea to eventually be interpreted by the brain. 

* The femur is the strongest bone in the human body. It extends from the hip to the knee. It can resist a force of up to 1,800 to 2,500 pounds. Only events of a large amount of force can cause it to break, such as by a car accident or a fall from an extreme height, taking months to heal. 

* The hands have the most bones — 27 in each hand.The hands and feet together make up more than half the bones in the human body. There are 206 bones in the human body; 106 of these are in the hands and feet (27 in each hand and 26 in each foot). 

* The small toe bones break the easier and most often. Almost everyone has broken a toe, even a small one, in their life. And there's really you can do about it, but let it heal. 

* Even more common than breaking a toes is spraining or breaking your ankle. It happens almost everywhere: on the field of play, on a hiking trail or trying not to trip over children's toys. There is a difference between a sprained and broken ankle. Ankle fractures and sprains are both often accompanied by tendon damage. 

* Arthroscopic procedures on the knee increased 49% between 1996 and 2006. Arthroscopy is a surgical procedure by which the internal structure of a joint is examined for diagnosis and/or treatment using a tube-like viewing instrument called an arthroscope. Arthroscopy can be helpful in the diagnosis and treatment of many noninflammatory, inflammatory, and infectious types of arthritis as well as various injuries within the joint. 

* Osteoporosis is the most common bone disease, which is characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone structure. Osteoporosis can be prevented, as well as diagnosed and treated. Low bone mass is when bones lose the minerals that make them strong, especially calcium, which makes them weak and fracture easily. 

* The clinical terms for this disease is massive osteolysis. It's more commonly known as Gorham's disease. Regenerating bone after a fracture is overtaken by the process of absorbing bone and the bone is broken down into almost nothing. The bone just kind of disappears, as the name suggests. What's perhaps most mysterious is that a number of cases of Gorham's have ended in spontaneous remission. The disease itself disappears. 

* Evel Knievel (USA, b. Robert Craig Knievel), the pioneer of motorcycle long jumping exhibitions, had suffered 433 bone fractures by end of 1975. In the winter of 1976 he was seriously injured during a televised attempt to jump a tank full of sharks at the Chicago Amphitheater. He decided to retire from major performances as a result. 

* The adult human body has 206 of them.