The doctors' warning is blunt: "Take care of your body, it's the only one you have." However, it would be foolish to deny that there are multiple markets revolving around the human body that speculate on its failure or general maintenance. While we don't know for certain who assigns value to the different parts of our physique or how it's defined… the point is that such value exists.
"I'm going to have to sell a kidney to buy that" is an expression that repeats over and over, especially among computer enthusiasts. Others suggest donating blood or sperm, although the earnings and legality of these activities vary greatly from one region to another. As these comments accumulate, it is inevitable to reach the underlying question: How much is the human body worth? A couple of years ago we explored an interactive BBC portal called The Making of Me and You that allows us to calculate the price of some elements, and fortunately it still works. As an alternative, we can watch one of ASAPScience's recent videos, which focuses a bit more on the value of organs:
What your body parts are worth
According to the video, in the best case scenario a sperm donation can yield up to 1,500 dollars monthly, provided some essential conditions are met, starting with exceptional physical condition, good height, youth, and education.
The value of eggs is on average ten times higher (with extreme cases of 50 or 100 thousand dollars), but the procedure is much riskier (requires the use of several medications, and anesthesia during extraction).
Plasma is worth about 50 dollars, unless the donor decides to enter the "anti-aging sessions" business where older people pay up to 8,000 dollars for a transfusion of "young blood".
Organ transplants can cost millions of dollars or be carried out almost free of charge (depending on the health system), but returning to the kidney example, the black market points to about 20,000 dollars in India, 40,000 dollars in China, and up to 160,000 dollars in Israel.
The price of fame
However, that's not all. The value of the human body can end up in orbit once insurance comes into play.
Without going further, Rihanna insured her legs for one million pounds sterling, and Taylor Swift did the same for 40 million dollars, but far above both appears Cristiano Ronaldo, whose insurance is estimated at about 144 million dollars.
At the same time, different biological functions such as sneezing or breathing have an equivalent in energy, and let's not forget the traces (albeit insignificant) of metals like gold and copper.
In summary: When someone tells you you're worthless, they are very wrong.
