eli5 How was a whole organ’s usefulness unknown for such a long time(appendix)?
In: 190
Microbial effects in the body and for that matter *their benefits* are not well understood, even as of now. The science and effects are under study and we are finding more and more links between our general health and our gut flora.
The thing is, we can absolutely live without a healthy gut flora and removing the appendix has had no noticeable negative short term effects usually. For many people, it’s a slow burn as our gut flora literally dictates some of our every day lives through moods and eating habits bit that can be hard to notice or even attribute to the appendix.
Basically, we didn’t anticipate the extent to which good bacteria helps a person and people with appendicitis who had their appendix removed showed no extreme signs of illness. So, it went unnoticed.
Microbial effects in the body and for that matter *their benefits* are not well understood, even as of now. The science and effects are under study and we are finding more and more links between our general health and our gut flora.
The thing is, we can absolutely live without a healthy gut flora and removing the appendix has had no noticeable negative short term effects usually. For many people, it’s a slow burn as our gut flora literally dictates some of our every day lives through moods and eating habits bit that can be hard to notice or even attribute to the appendix.
Basically, we didn’t anticipate the extent to which good bacteria helps a person and people with appendicitis who had their appendix removed showed no extreme signs of illness. So, it went unnoticed.
Microbial effects in the body and for that matter *their benefits* are not well understood, even as of now. The science and effects are under study and we are finding more and more links between our general health and our gut flora.
The thing is, we can absolutely live without a healthy gut flora and removing the appendix has had no noticeable negative short term effects usually. For many people, it’s a slow burn as our gut flora literally dictates some of our every day lives through moods and eating habits bit that can be hard to notice or even attribute to the appendix.
Basically, we didn’t anticipate the extent to which good bacteria helps a person and people with appendicitis who had their appendix removed showed no extreme signs of illness. So, it went unnoticed.
Our modern medical understanding is only a century or two old. Your odds of surviving any injury worthy of medical treatment were the same 200 years ago as they were 20000 years ago, for the most part (there’s many valid claims to be made about herbal remedies but we didn’t have a solid grasp on antibiotics until 1928). The exact and precise function of any living tissue is hard to decipher because it is either A alive and part of a being that would prefer you didn’t root around inside it or B dead, much more willing to be poked and prodded but no longer doing the processes it did while alive. So figuring out specifically what one auxillary organ does is just hard. And there’s other bigger, more relevant organs to figure out first.
Our modern medical understanding is only a century or two old. Your odds of surviving any injury worthy of medical treatment were the same 200 years ago as they were 20000 years ago, for the most part (there’s many valid claims to be made about herbal remedies but we didn’t have a solid grasp on antibiotics until 1928). The exact and precise function of any living tissue is hard to decipher because it is either A alive and part of a being that would prefer you didn’t root around inside it or B dead, much more willing to be poked and prodded but no longer doing the processes it did while alive. So figuring out specifically what one auxillary organ does is just hard. And there’s other bigger, more relevant organs to figure out first.
Our modern medical understanding is only a century or two old. Your odds of surviving any injury worthy of medical treatment were the same 200 years ago as they were 20000 years ago, for the most part (there’s many valid claims to be made about herbal remedies but we didn’t have a solid grasp on antibiotics until 1928). The exact and precise function of any living tissue is hard to decipher because it is either A alive and part of a being that would prefer you didn’t root around inside it or B dead, much more willing to be poked and prodded but no longer doing the processes it did while alive. So figuring out specifically what one auxillary organ does is just hard. And there’s other bigger, more relevant organs to figure out first.
Interesting most animals the appendix is used for breaking down cellulose. In humans it doesn’t do this.
The assumption was that the breakdown of cellulose was the only function, and that humans, with the more varied diet, no longer needed it. So it became defunct. And since evolution rarely removes something, it just hung around.
It turns out it does more than that. But we were both blindsighted by our observations of its purpose in other animals, and not yet knowledgeable about gut bacteria and their role and importance.
We learned. Because that what science does — it changes over time as more data becomes available.
Edit: cellulose, not chlorophyll. 🤦🏼♂️
Edit 2: gut bacteria. With guy (and girl) bacteria.
Interesting most animals the appendix is used for breaking down cellulose. In humans it doesn’t do this.
The assumption was that the breakdown of cellulose was the only function, and that humans, with the more varied diet, no longer needed it. So it became defunct. And since evolution rarely removes something, it just hung around.
It turns out it does more than that. But we were both blindsighted by our observations of its purpose in other animals, and not yet knowledgeable about gut bacteria and their role and importance.
We learned. Because that what science does — it changes over time as more data becomes available.
Edit: cellulose, not chlorophyll. 🤦🏼♂️
Edit 2: gut bacteria. With guy (and girl) bacteria.
Interesting most animals the appendix is used for breaking down cellulose. In humans it doesn’t do this.
The assumption was that the breakdown of cellulose was the only function, and that humans, with the more varied diet, no longer needed it. So it became defunct. And since evolution rarely removes something, it just hung around.
It turns out it does more than that. But we were both blindsighted by our observations of its purpose in other animals, and not yet knowledgeable about gut bacteria and their role and importance.
We learned. Because that what science does — it changes over time as more data becomes available.
Edit: cellulose, not chlorophyll. 🤦🏼♂️
Edit 2: gut bacteria. With guy (and girl) bacteria.
Think of the appendix as a blind ended outpouching of your intestine, it’s made of the exact same cells as the intestine and so functionally you’d think it would work the same, except it’s blind ended, so it can’t push poop anywhere, so the functionality of it goes out the door. This led scientists back to the drawing board where they finally discovered good bacteria and the fact that the appendix was full of that shit, and there’s so much about good bacteria we are yet to learn, and that’s precisely why we only just figured out it actually served a function coz we still literally learning what the function of good bacteria is
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