Healthbolt

Dear Gastrointestinal Tract

by Sara Ost on October 8th, 2007

After enduring many miserable years as the ugly redheaded shrimp child of the digestive sector, I hope I may finally get some long overdue appreciation and respect. Hello, you rotten, ungrateful body. I am your appendix, and I am not a vestigial slacker. In fact, I’ll have you know, I’m a germ warehouse! How do you feel now? Enclosed please find my therapy bills.

Here’s an interesting body bit, gang: the appendix may be the organ equivalent of the back of the store. As in, it holds the extra things you really need. The appendix appears to serve as a protective shelter for important beneficial bacteria that serve various functions related to immunity. Inside your very active intestines, you will find a thin but crucial layer of bacteria, microbes and mucous called the biofilm. Time for a pop quiz!

This biofilm is most noticeable in and around your:
a) appendix
b) I hate this stupid quiz
c) I always pick C

Correct answer: appendix! Typically, when a parasite or other infectious bugger comes along, diarrhea is the unpleasant result. Consequently, that precious biofilm in your intestines is swept clean. That’s where the appendix comes in - to repopulate your G.I. tract with good bacteria and a fully functional biofilm. In parts of the world that have good health care and sanitation, this is a probable explanation for why the appendix appears useless. But before modern sanitation, G.I. Prawn was probably pretty important for surviving various diseases. If this is correct, it follows that in places without modern sanitation, the appendix still helps humans rebound from infectious disease. The hitch is that it is difficult to conduct anything but a deductive study on humans (duh), and the only other mammals that possess appendices are rabbits, opossums, and wombats. Oh, and theirs are different, anyway.

Going further, because that’s what we do around this joint, scientists hypothesize that appendicitis might be a “hygiene disease” of industrialized societies. This would mean our appendices are a bunch of wimps that totally overreact to minor problems. But it’s not really their fault, because we’re so stinking sanitary.

This concludes Science with Sara. Here’s the real deal if you’d like to learn more.

(Flickr Photo - CC)

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POSTED IN: Science, Surgery, Your Body