NationStates Jolt Archive


Your appendix may serve a purpose after all...

Sel Appa
05-10-2007, 23:19
Although it may not be fully needed in developed countries, it appears to help cultivate and store good bacteria that have been previously wiped out by diseases such as cholera.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/appendix_s_purpose)

WASHINGTON - Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.
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For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function, surgeons removed them routinely, and people live fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most of it is good and helps digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker, a study co-author. Its location — just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac — helps support the theory, he said.

Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs, Parker said.

That use is not needed in a modern industrialized society, Parker said. If a person's gut flora dies, they can usually repopulate it easily with germs they pick up from other people, he said. But before dense populations in modern times and during epidemics of cholera that affected a whole region, it wasn't as easy to grow back that bacteria and the appendix came in handy.

In less developed countries, where the appendix may be still useful, the rate of appendicitis is lower than in the U.S., other studies have shown, Parker said.

He said the appendix may be another case of an overly hygienic society triggering an overreaction by the body's immune system.

Even though the appendix seems to have a function, people should still have them removed when they are inflamed because it could turn deadly, Parker said. About 300 to 400 Americans die of appendicitis each year, according to the CDC.

Five scientists not connected with the research said that the Duke theory makes sense and raises interesting questions.

The idea "seems by far the most likely" explanation for the function of the appendix, said Brandeis University biochemistry professor Douglas Theobald. "It makes evolutionary sense."

The theory led Gary Huffnagle, a University of Michigan internal medicine and microbiology professor, to wonder about the value of another body part that is often yanked: "I'll bet eventually we'll find the same sort of thing with the tonsils."
H N Fiddlebottoms VIII
05-10-2007, 23:32
So it's like some sort of germ egg sac? I don't think that I have ever been more horrified by one of my own internal organs.
GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT NOW!
King Arthur the Great
05-10-2007, 23:35
So it's like some sort of germ egg sac? I don't think that I have ever been more horrified by one of my own internal organs.
GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT NOW!

For you, the appendix exists to be removed in a doctor prescribed surgery that will put you back in the wallet. See? Even for highly developed countried, the appendix still provides a very important use. It allows surgeons and hospitals and all of those other health-care industry related entities to make money!!!
Greater Trostia
05-10-2007, 23:37
Of course the appendix is useful, especially if there are a lot of references in the text.
Nihelm
05-10-2007, 23:38
nifty....



I wonder if anyone has ever thought to pull out a health appendix and see what it is like, rather than dead or blown up ones.




tonsils, you're next bitches!
Smunkeeville
05-10-2007, 23:42
nifty....



I wonder if anyone has ever thought to pull out a health appendix and see what it is like, rather than dead or blown up ones.




tonsils, you're next bitches!

doctors remove healthy appendixes all the time. If you ever have intestine surgery the doctor will most likely remove your appendix while he is in there, healthy or not.
H N Fiddlebottoms VIII
05-10-2007, 23:44
I wonder if anyone has ever thought to pull out a health appendix and see what it is like, rather than dead or blown up ones.
Back in the 70's or 80's it was all the rage to have one's children's appendixes and such removed, in order to prevent future infection. The tradition seems to have fallen out of favor, though, as I still have my disgusting, germ egg-sac sitting inside me. Pulsing and pushing against my other organs. I can imagine it, so damp and fleshy, completely filled with bugs, just waiting to rupture and spread-
OHGOODGODGETITOUTGETITOUT!
Nihelm
05-10-2007, 23:45
but they removed them just to get them out. there was no intention of actually study of them.:D
Sel Appa
05-10-2007, 23:57
doctors remove healthy appendixes all the time. If you ever have intestine surgery the doctor will most likely remove your appendix while he is in there, healthy or not.

That was when they thought it was useless. It should start to change. :)
Lackadaisical1
06-10-2007, 00:29
That was when they thought it was useless. It should start to change. :)

Well, theres the idiocy of some in the medical profession... "do we know what it does?" "Maybe, sometimes its troublesome" "eh, get rid of it"...

I guess I'm just very against things getting removed from my body- I tend to think theres a reason for things that are permanently attached to me.
Pacificville
06-10-2007, 00:39
Of course the appendix is useful, especially if there are a lot of references in the text.

:fluffle:
Gartref
06-10-2007, 00:46
Since my appendix was removed, I've had to store all my back-up digestive bacteria in my foreskin.
Call to power
06-10-2007, 01:18
so maybe it was wrong to question God's work!:eek:

Since my appendix was removed, I've had to store all my back-up digestive bacteria in my foreskin.

you must have some great pick-up lines :p
Bellicous
06-10-2007, 01:43
you must have some great pick-up lines :p

LOL
Derscon
06-10-2007, 01:59
Of course the appendix is useful, especially if there are a lot of references in the text.

You win the thread.
Divine Imaginary Fluff
06-10-2007, 03:29
Of course the appendix is useful, especially if there are a lot of references in the text.However, as demonstrated by a certain programming language manual, tonsils can do the job just as fine.
Seathornia
06-10-2007, 03:33
A perfect place to test this theory is India:

There are a lot of people.

Cholera is more common there than in Europe and the US.

If people without their appendix are more prone to... whatever they are supposed to be prone to, then clearly, population density is not a factor. The theory is perfectly valid and can be tested even this day.
Nadkor
06-10-2007, 03:50
For you, the appendix exists to be removed in a doctor prescribed surgery that will put you back in the wallet. See? Even for highly developed countried, the appendix still provides a very important use. It allows surgeons and hospitals and all of those other health-care industry related entities to make money!!!

No, that's in almost highly developed countries. In highly developed countries it costs nothing.
Enlightened Worlds
06-10-2007, 04:29
I wonder what an appendix weighs, and if they'd take mine out so I can say I'm losing weight when my mom asks me if I'm watching what I eat.




:D

If a human appendix size is proportional to that of a foetus pig's appendix (did a dissection in high school/uni), then having yours removed would barely affect your weight. You might even lose more "weight" with a washroom visit.
Gun Manufacturers
06-10-2007, 04:29
I wonder what an appendix weighs, and if they'd take mine out so I can say I'm losing weight when my mom asks me if I'm watching what I eat.




:D
Enlightened Worlds
06-10-2007, 04:34
I wonder what an appendix weighs, and if they'd take mine out so I can say I'm losing weight when my mom asks me if I'm watching what I eat.




:D

If a human appendix size is proportional to that of a foetus pig's appendix (did a dissection in high school/uni), then having yours removed would barely affect your weight. You might even lose more "weight" with a washroom visit.