Is the appendix really a useless vestige?

Hi,

Scientists answer this question with an emphatic no.





The appendix, they said, is a safe haven where good bacteria could hang out until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhoea, for example. BTW, do you know that we have about 1 kg of good bacteria in our alimentary canal, mostly in the large intestine or colon? (Herbivores such as cows and sheep depend on these bacteria to digest the cellulose cell walls of the vegetation that these animals depend on for their nutrition.)

Appendicitis, or inflammation of the appendix, is not due to a faulty appendix, but rather due to cultural changes associated with industrialized society and improved sanitation. "Those changes left our immune systems with too little work and too much time their hands – a recipe for trouble," says William Parker of Duke University.

We had no way of knowing until the mid 1980's that the function of the appendix could be rendered obsolete by cultural changes that included widespread use of sewer systems and clean drinking water.

To prevent appendicitis the answer may lie in devising ways to challenge our immune systems today in much the same manner that they were challenged back in the Stone Age. "If modern medicine could figure out a way to do that, we would see far fewer cases of allergies, autoimmune disease, and appendicitis." (Childhood asthma, lupus disease, eczema are some autoimmune diseases common in Singapore.)

William Parker of Duke University is the senior author of this study.


Cheers