Posted on 08/25/2009 4:04:39 AM PDT by raybbr
The body's appendix has long been thought of as nothing more than a worthless evolutionary artifact, good for nothing save a potentially lethal case of inflammation.
Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought. And it's possible some of this organ's ancient uses could be recruited by physicians to help the human body fight disease more effectively.
In a way, the idea that the appendix is an organ whose time has passed has itself become a concept whose time is over.
"Maybe it's time to correct the textbooks," said researcher William Parker, an immunologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. "Many biology texts today still refer to the appendix as a 'vestigial organ.'"
Slimy sac
The vermiform appendix is a slimy dead-end sac that hangs between the small and large intestines. No less than Charles Darwin first suggested that the appendix was a vestigial organ from an ancestor that ate leaves, theorizing that it was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which once was used by now-extinct predecessors for digesting food.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
ping
Now the say it is useful...only 9 years after having mine taken out.... crap wonder if it would still be any good?
In March I was diagnosed as having “chronic appendicitis.” The doc said that he wouldn’t take it out until it became “acute.” I had to live with the intermittent pain and the knowledge that it could become an emergency situation ... just whenever. I inquired if there was an antibiotic I could take to stave off infection. The doc replied, “no,” and with a straight face ~ and he was really serious! ~ said, “just don’t eat vegetables.”
Hey Darwin, maybe God put it there for a reason!
Well once I finshed the course of antibiotics...it was within 7 days mine went acute and according to the ER nurses it had ruptured while i was in the ER waiting for surgery. Glad I had such a good outcome because I have heard of others that take months to recover from the surgery or have to deal with the pain because docs are afraid to remove it.
Humm, ya EVER thought that there may be a DESIGNER!
"We're not saying that Darwin's idea of evolution is wrong - that would be absurd, as we're using his ideas on evolution to do this work," Parker told LiveScience. "It's just that Darwin simply didn't have the information we have now."He added, "If Darwin had been aware of the species that have an appendix attached to a large cecum, and if he had known about the widespread nature of the appendix, he probably would not have thought of the appendix as a vestige of evolution."
Why doesn’t the DESIGNER remove the appendix from those people who will have problems with them?
Probably for the same reason the DESIGNER doesn’t remove a lung from those people who will get lung cancer.
“Maybe it’s time to correct the textbooks,” again.
She had all the tests for a bad gall bladder and they always came back negative.
Her emergency situation occured on Thanksgiving Eve evening.
"If modern medicine could figure out a way to do that, we would see far fewer cases of allergies, autoimmune disease, and appendicitis," Parker said.
It's kinda hard to 'incite' your immune system when you go around sanitizing every thing in sight.
Oh, Martha, can’t have been good. Was there any turkey left for her by the time she felt like eating again?
They ripped out my gall bladder 3 years ago. I still miss it. I’m suspecting now though that this is all related to my pernicious anemia. I wasn’t happy with the gall bladder diagnosis but felt pressed for time as I was supposed to head overseas the next week.
Now, my concern is that I will be off in the interior of New Guinea or maybe out diving in the bay when the thing ruptures. There is no quick evacuation from any of those places. But this could go on for years.
And still the docs say, “wait.”
Give me a pen knife! I may do it myself.
Look on the bright side. You''ve survived 9 years without an organ that was performing a crucial fuction.
I can well relate and I’m glad you had such a good outcome.
Last year I was hospitalized for a kidney infection and they kept a little longer because they thought the appendix might have been involved. The surgeon said that it was swollen but just borderline of where they would remove or not. This was in the states.
I’ve had continued off-and-on pain with it, but never anything to double me over. The intermittent pain is enough to get my attention though.
The chronic diagnosis came here in New Guinea at a little hospital called “Dian Harapan.” It was somewhat funny when the doc began mentioning appendix. Because we were talking in my second language and my understanding isn’t always great, I interupted and said I needed to call another ex-pat who was a nurse.
I called and said, “Judi, I think they may want to remove my appendix.” I had gone in to get a chest x-ray to determine if I had merely bronchitis or perhaps pneumonia. It was during the doc exam that led to the abdomen. Anyway, she quickly replied, “DON’T let them do that!”
I was not althogether thinking clearly and my major thought was, “how in the world am I going to manage riding my motorcycle home (about 15 kilometers) after an appendix operation?
I believe both are immune system responses to something that is not a pathogen. If the resopnse is to something endogenic it's "autoimmune", if it's exogenic it an "allergy".
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