This is what happens to your body after DEATH

Most of us are aware that the body decomposes gradually, but many people do not know is the mechanism by which the body decomposes from the moment of death, so what happens to the organs of the body? Read the article to know more.

About 100 people die every minute around the world every day, so what happens to your body after death? This is what we will learn about in the following.

1. The first hours after death

The body goes through a set of changes, which we can summarize as follows:

In the first seconds and minutes

What happens to your body after death in the first seconds and minutes includes the following:

The oxygen level decreases rapidly.

Brain activity slows down and neurons stop working completely.

The brain stops producing hormones that regulate the functioning of various functions in the body, although some of them may continue to work for a period of minutes before the process stops completely.

The rest of the stock of adenosine triphosphate is consumed, which usually provides the necessary energy for the body, so the muscles, including the sphincter, relax, which means that the dead person may excrete feces or urine in his stomach.

Pale skin, which appears especially in people with lighter skin than others, often 15-20 minutes after the time of death.

The heart stops pumping blood, and the blood circulation in the body stops completely, which increases the effect of gravity, so the blood begins to collect at the closest point to the body on the ground and in specific places in the body.

Immediately after cardiac arrest, body temperature drops to room temperature.

after a few hours

This is what happens to your body after death, a few hours later:

As a result of blood pooling in a specific area of the body, the skin begins to take on different colors such as green, purple, and red.

3-6 hours after death, a condition called rigor mortis begins, and this occurs as a result of the deterioration of the muscle cells and the leakage of calcium into them to bind with the proteins in the muscles, causing the muscles to contract and stiffen, leaving the body stuck in a certain position and stiff for a period of 24- 48 hours.

12 hours later:

As for what happens to your body after death, after 12 hours, the body has reached the maximum degree of complete discoloration of the skin in a condition known as livor mortis, a condition that helps forensic medicine to estimate the time of death and in which the color of the body turns black.

2. The first days after death

If the body is not exposed to any of the chemical preservation methods, it begins to decompose gradually without stopping, and during the first weeks it goes through the following changes:

The cells of the body lack blood to feed them or pass through them, which leads to a rise in carbon dioxide levels and acidity levels in the tissues, and this causes the cell membranes to break down and the cytosol leaks out.

After the cellular fluid leaves the cells, the enzymes and microorganisms present in it begin to analyze the surrounding tissues that the fluid comes into contact with.

Anaerobic bacteria in the digestive tract start feeding on the organs in the abdominal area.

As a result of what happens, unpleasant odors begin to emit from the corpse (the smell is very similar to the smell of rotting eggs) in a process called putrefaction, and these odors begin to attract various insects, such as: moths, carrion-eating beetles, and flies.

Then the gathered flies lay their eggs in the rotting tissues, to hatch within one day, and the larvae begin to feed on the tissues until they become mature flies.

3. The first weeks after death

This is what happens to your body after death in the first weeks:

The fly larvae eat about 60% of the body's tissues within a few weeks of death, which results in holes in the body through which fluids and gases resulting from the decomposition of the body leak.

After 20-50 days after death, a process called Butyric fermentatio begins, during which other insects are attracted to the body such as: beetle larvae and fungi.

A month after death, nails and hair often begin to fall out.

The above-mentioned operations will continue for up to a year.

4. A year after death

Animals and plants feed on the remaining parts of the body over a period of several years, including bones, to return the body to nature.

By Nizar Sabry - Sunday 15 August 2023