Body for sale: How much are your chemical components worth?
If you take the cost of the raw materials in a human body; A human costs about $1985.77
Are we made of money?
You always hear stories about students selling their bodies to finance their studies. But, how much could you make from the raw materials that makes up your body? This was an idea that came to me the other day and I decided I had to find out just how much we are worth in raw chemical elements!
To work this out I first needed to find out what the make-up of my body is. Unsurpringly, the internet already had this data assembled for me. The average human is made up of 54 different elements, ranging from carbon (the most prevalent) to radium (the least prevalent). Then find the cost for the pure element, this was done with a variety of sites (but mainly chemicool.com). All the following calculations and data are relevant for an adult of approximately 70Kg, the data offers no distinction between men and women. But, due to the natural differences in body tissue composition it is likely that there will be some variation. Here are the 15 most abundant elements in the body and their real world cost values:
| Element | Mass in body (kg) | Value per kg ($) | Total value ($) |
| Oxygen | 43 | 3 | 129 |
| Carbon | 16 | 24 | 384 |
| Hydrogen | 7 | 100 | 700 |
| Nitrogen | 1.8 | 4 | 7.2 |
| Calcium | 1.0 | 200 | 200 |
| Phosphorus | 0.780 | 300 | 234 |
| Potassium | 0.140 | 1000 | 140 |
| Sulphur | 0.140 | 500 | 70 |
| Sodium | 0.100 | 250 | 25 |
| Chlorine | 0.095 | 1.5 | 0.14 |
| Magnesium | 0.019 | 37 | 0.7 |
| Iron | 0.0042 | 72 | 0.3 |
This comes up to the total of $1890.34. But, what about the remaining 39 elements? The body contains a remarkable range of elements from gold to uranium. However, with their quantities so low it only works out as only $95.41.
Giving the grand total cost of the human body as $1985.77.
According to current conversion rates is about £1224.72. What could you buy for this though? Well, you could get a lower end Macbook Pro, 2722 Mars bars or you and 7 friends could all chip in to buy the latest Fiat 500…I know which I would pick!
To check out all the calculations you can download my excel workings from here
