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APPENDIX HAS A PURPOSE!

For many people, professionals or not, appendix is “a useless, troublesome, worm-shaped unnecessary addition to the human body”. For generations, the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them. Appendicitis is a nasty contributor of morbidity and mortality. When infected, the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. In year 2005, 321,000 Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis (Centre for Disease Control & Prevention). Now, some scientists (surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School) think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food. The scientists think that the function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. In case of purging (through diarrhea, amoebic dysentery, cholera, etc.), most of the useful bacteria are cleared from the gut. In that case, the appendix comes to the rescue by repopulating the digestive system with (useful) bacteria. The worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs. The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke, a 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.

23rd April, 2008