Do your organs grow with you? - Big Questions - (Ep. 20)

Hi, I'm Craig. I have regular-sized organs, and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today I'm going to answer Jen Alexander's big question, do your organs grow with you

Well, Jen, the answer is yes, for the most part. They grow until you're fully grown

which is usually your late teens and early 20s. But it's hard to generalize, considering you have almost 80 organs which make up many different organ systems

So I'm going to explain the development of a few different organs for you today, including the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the brain

Let's get started. Right after conception, a fetus's heart takes up almost all of its midsection

Other than that, though, your heart is pretty much always around the same size as your fist

at the time. Even babies have hearts the size of their witty bitty fists

Then it grows with that person. Once they stop growing, their heart stops growing too

There are some conditions that make the heart continue to grow after this point, though. These include high blood pressure and a leaky heart valve

Or love. But that's metaphorical. Lungs start working after birth. At first they're filled with amniotic fluid

Then the baby takes their first breath and lungs start to do their job. Crying. A lot

Lungs continue to grow until people are in their late teens or early 20s. This is why young people smoking is such a concern

Their lungs don end up developing to the extent and size they should The liver reaches its full size of around three pounds at the same time It capable of regenerating itself which is why people are able to donate a part of their liver to another person or to a dog Maybe

probably has never happened. At birth, the brain is about 25% of the size it'll reach

Then it starts to grow fast. By the time a child is two years old, the brain is 80

of its adult size. It also stops growing around your 20s. But even when it has stopped

growing, the brain continues to develop in other ways until it's around 25 years old

And then we just all just remain that smart. We're just dumb until we die

No, never stop learning. Putting aside the liver's ability to regenerate and the brain's ability to continue to develop

there's really only two organs that will continue to grow until you die. Your ears and your nose

Six-year-olds have ears that are 90% fully grown. And that's the case for teenagers with their noses

But still, a little elongation continues throughout life, thanks to cartilage growth and gravity and lying

Speaking of organs on our faces, there are There's a common misconception that eyes don't grow at all after birth

In fact, they grow a little, but stop when you're about 13 years old. Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made by these regular organ-sized people

If you have a question of your own that you'd like answered, leave it below in the comments

and I will see you next week