Sooooo...maybe that appendix thing isnt unnecessary after all?

[Lucinda]

Scientists: Appendix protects good germs

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.

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...

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...




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071005/ap_on_he_me/appendix_s_purpose">MORE

I'm not sure I agree with "That use is not needed in a modern industrialized society..." but I found the article interesting. Too often things are deemed unnecessary - until we figure out what they really do.

[Book Lover]

1. I have college-level anatomy textbooks in my office that go back quite a few years

and none of them claim the appendix is useless. I really wonder who is teaching it that way still...

[Lucinda]

8. Makes you wonder, doesnt it?

I've heard younger and older doctors say it though, both in California and in the south.

[soothsayer]

2. Like our 'junk dna.' Science doesn't understand it, so tosses it under the bus.

[KaptBunnyPants]

6. Scientists don't understand it, so they study it further.

Just who do you think it was that found the use of "junk DNA", or the appendix for that matter? Witch Doctors? Voodoo Priests? The High Council of Veganism?

[monktonman]

3. I thought I had appendicitis a few weeks ago.

Turned out to be really painful gas.
Good thing I didnt go to the emergency room.
I'm sure that no matter what, I would have been operated on.
Doctors have got to make a buck ya'know.

[Lucinda]

9. Glad it passed...no pun intended

Gas pain can be hellishly painful.

[Skidmore]

4. It would be interesting to learn if those of us who have had appendectomies

have higher frequencies of other more chronic problems.

[Lucinda]

10. Yes, it would.

Wouldnt surprise me if it was a factor in a lot of intestinal health problems.

[Zookeeper]

5. I've always had trouble believing the theory that the appendix...

is useless. It seemed more likely that we just hadn't figured out its purpose yet. Not too many things in Nature are "useless."

[Lucinda]

12. Me too! Thats why i'm glad to see the article. n/t

[DavidDvorkin]

7. I had mine removed almost 40 years ago! I was mutilated!

And no one cares! I'm going to sue!

[Warren DeMontague]

11. And people wonder why we didn't circumcise our son.

It's there, it probably serves some function. I tend to err on the side of giving 4.7 billion years of evolution the benefit of the doubt.

With the possible exception of my Wisdom teeth. Those were a pain in the ass to deal with.

[Colorado Progressive]

14. Exactly the same here! Its there for a reason! I figure if my son

wants to mutilate himself as a consenting adult that's his choice, and his body.

[Guaranteed]

13. Mmmmm bacteria-ey. nt