eli5 How was a whole organ’s usefulness unknown for such a long time(appendix)?
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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
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
Anatomists are a funny bunch. Their job is to map and name every little lump and bump in the body. That gets put in a list for some medical student to memorize but it doesn’t always clear, mechanically, why that lump or bump exists.
The appendix is like your intestines’ coin purse. If you look at it, it’s a little sack that doesn’t go anywhere and the main thing that we generally associate it with is when it is infected and killing us. Seems like a worthless little pouch.
Looking at all the other animal species out there, a great many have the fuller version of the appendix called a cecum. The larger size of their organ and how it’s distributed in the body gives us a general sense that that’s where our appendix came from and that there is a functional use for it. But as we’ve come to claim, ours is small so we probably don’t need it anymore. It’s vestigial.
About 10 years ago gastroenterologists stopped laughing at the idea of a fecal transplant. Some still do, but from the peer-reviewed scientific community all of a sudden we were starting to look at our own intestinal microbiome not only as a funny component of our bodies, but actually as its own organ system that we relied on. That’s a whole body system that were only now just considering in very recent time. Another one is the space just under the skin that doesn’t present as an obvious organ system and yet has important function that’s largely been overlooked by the flashier, meatier organs.
So the answer to your question is that, taken as an offshoot of the gastrointestinal system, the appendix is not functionally interesting nor does it appear to do much. However, taken as a component of the intestinal microbial organ, a system that is relatively new in its scientific interest, appendix likely still does have function. We’re just figuring that out now.
As an aside, I consider the appendix to be like that sourdough starter jar sitting in your refrigerator. Following a diarrheal blowout decimating your microflora, it’s nice to have a normal population stuck outside of the normal transit lane to be able to reseed the highway, so to speak.
Anatomists are a funny bunch. Their job is to map and name every little lump and bump in the body. That gets put in a list for some medical student to memorize but it doesn’t always clear, mechanically, why that lump or bump exists.
The appendix is like your intestines’ coin purse. If you look at it, it’s a little sack that doesn’t go anywhere and the main thing that we generally associate it with is when it is infected and killing us. Seems like a worthless little pouch.
Looking at all the other animal species out there, a great many have the fuller version of the appendix called a cecum. The larger size of their organ and how it’s distributed in the body gives us a general sense that that’s where our appendix came from and that there is a functional use for it. But as we’ve come to claim, ours is small so we probably don’t need it anymore. It’s vestigial.
About 10 years ago gastroenterologists stopped laughing at the idea of a fecal transplant. Some still do, but from the peer-reviewed scientific community all of a sudden we were starting to look at our own intestinal microbiome not only as a funny component of our bodies, but actually as its own organ system that we relied on. That’s a whole body system that were only now just considering in very recent time. Another one is the space just under the skin that doesn’t present as an obvious organ system and yet has important function that’s largely been overlooked by the flashier, meatier organs.
So the answer to your question is that, taken as an offshoot of the gastrointestinal system, the appendix is not functionally interesting nor does it appear to do much. However, taken as a component of the intestinal microbial organ, a system that is relatively new in its scientific interest, appendix likely still does have function. We’re just figuring that out now.
As an aside, I consider the appendix to be like that sourdough starter jar sitting in your refrigerator. Following a diarrheal blowout decimating your microflora, it’s nice to have a normal population stuck outside of the normal transit lane to be able to reseed the highway, so to speak.
Anatomists are a funny bunch. Their job is to map and name every little lump and bump in the body. That gets put in a list for some medical student to memorize but it doesn’t always clear, mechanically, why that lump or bump exists.
The appendix is like your intestines’ coin purse. If you look at it, it’s a little sack that doesn’t go anywhere and the main thing that we generally associate it with is when it is infected and killing us. Seems like a worthless little pouch.
Looking at all the other animal species out there, a great many have the fuller version of the appendix called a cecum. The larger size of their organ and how it’s distributed in the body gives us a general sense that that’s where our appendix came from and that there is a functional use for it. But as we’ve come to claim, ours is small so we probably don’t need it anymore. It’s vestigial.
About 10 years ago gastroenterologists stopped laughing at the idea of a fecal transplant. Some still do, but from the peer-reviewed scientific community all of a sudden we were starting to look at our own intestinal microbiome not only as a funny component of our bodies, but actually as its own organ system that we relied on. That’s a whole body system that were only now just considering in very recent time. Another one is the space just under the skin that doesn’t present as an obvious organ system and yet has important function that’s largely been overlooked by the flashier, meatier organs.
So the answer to your question is that, taken as an offshoot of the gastrointestinal system, the appendix is not functionally interesting nor does it appear to do much. However, taken as a component of the intestinal microbial organ, a system that is relatively new in its scientific interest, appendix likely still does have function. We’re just figuring that out now.
As an aside, I consider the appendix to be like that sourdough starter jar sitting in your refrigerator. Following a diarrheal blowout decimating your microflora, it’s nice to have a normal population stuck outside of the normal transit lane to be able to reseed the highway, so to speak.
Calling the appendix a “whole organ” is a stretch. It’s a long, skinny out-pouching off the colon smaller than your little finger. For decades most people knew it mostly for the problem it caused (appendicitis) and also that you could remove it with little to no discernible effect.
By usefulness, are you referring to maintenance of gut flora diversity? Diversity is a difficult thing to study. Take a sample of poop and spread it on a Petri dish. How do you tell how many different types of bacteria are there? Most bacterial colonies look about the same and identifying the type is painstakingly laborious. I’m fairly certain it is now done using next generations sequencing of DNA now which is a relatively new method. Before this, it was expensive and tedious to get a measure of gut flora diversity.
Wholesale replacement of gut flora with Clostridium difficile causing diarrhea was known decades ago, but does having an appendix protect you from C. diff? I don’t know to be honest.
Subtle things can be difficult to appreciate. The things we know often depend on the tools we have at our disposal.
Calling the appendix a “whole organ” is a stretch. It’s a long, skinny out-pouching off the colon smaller than your little finger. For decades most people knew it mostly for the problem it caused (appendicitis) and also that you could remove it with little to no discernible effect.
By usefulness, are you referring to maintenance of gut flora diversity? Diversity is a difficult thing to study. Take a sample of poop and spread it on a Petri dish. How do you tell how many different types of bacteria are there? Most bacterial colonies look about the same and identifying the type is painstakingly laborious. I’m fairly certain it is now done using next generations sequencing of DNA now which is a relatively new method. Before this, it was expensive and tedious to get a measure of gut flora diversity.
Wholesale replacement of gut flora with Clostridium difficile causing diarrhea was known decades ago, but does having an appendix protect you from C. diff? I don’t know to be honest.
Subtle things can be difficult to appreciate. The things we know often depend on the tools we have at our disposal.
Calling the appendix a “whole organ” is a stretch. It’s a long, skinny out-pouching off the colon smaller than your little finger. For decades most people knew it mostly for the problem it caused (appendicitis) and also that you could remove it with little to no discernible effect.
By usefulness, are you referring to maintenance of gut flora diversity? Diversity is a difficult thing to study. Take a sample of poop and spread it on a Petri dish. How do you tell how many different types of bacteria are there? Most bacterial colonies look about the same and identifying the type is painstakingly laborious. I’m fairly certain it is now done using next generations sequencing of DNA now which is a relatively new method. Before this, it was expensive and tedious to get a measure of gut flora diversity.
Wholesale replacement of gut flora with Clostridium difficile causing diarrhea was known decades ago, but does having an appendix protect you from C. diff? I don’t know to be honest.
Subtle things can be difficult to appreciate. The things we know often depend on the tools we have at our disposal.
Since you can very easily live without it, until modern medical equipment and lab equipment was available, there was no real way of knowing. The only way people knew what organs did was either through autopsies of humans or animals or by seeing the effects of certain illnesses or injuries on people. They could tell the difference between healthy organs or diseased organs usually and in some cases could understand the purpose, as in the case of the heart, stomach or lungs. But for organs like the liver or the pancreas or the appendix? For the longest time doctors could only guess as to their function, and there were many theories as to what they did exactly which seem funny to us today.
Since you can very easily live without it, until modern medical equipment and lab equipment was available, there was no real way of knowing. The only way people knew what organs did was either through autopsies of humans or animals or by seeing the effects of certain illnesses or injuries on people. They could tell the difference between healthy organs or diseased organs usually and in some cases could understand the purpose, as in the case of the heart, stomach or lungs. But for organs like the liver or the pancreas or the appendix? For the longest time doctors could only guess as to their function, and there were many theories as to what they did exactly which seem funny to us today.
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