YOUR BODY NEEDS A HEALTHY APPENDIX

For decades the appendix has been considered a useless organ. People who undergo abdominal surgery often have their appendix removed because the patient "didn't need it." Really? How did the surgeon know that?

As a medical physician for over 51 years, I strive to give you the best medical information on controversial medical subjects, and help your read betwwen the lines. You must come to your own conclusions. I have no ties to any organization, pharmaceutical, or lobby group. As an practicing medical acupuncturist since 1982, I find western medicine and medical acupuncture are very complimentary. This results in astounding healing in pain management, addictions to cigarettes and food, and a host of other maladies. Visit drneedles is blogging" at the end of each blog for a complete alphabetical list of all my blogs
Visit http://www.americanacupuncture.com/ for more detailed information on mind, body, and spirit healing.

YOUR BODY NEEDS A HEALTHY APPENDIX

For decades the appendix has been considered a useless organ. People who undergo abdominal surgery often have their appendix removed because the patient "didn't need it." Really? How did the surgeon know that?

For decades, surgeons have removed this organ during other abdominal surgery, to prevent appendicitis and future surgery. Since surgeons found no good reason for the useless appendix to be present, they often removed it without your permission.

For years, the appendix was thought to be a remnant of evolution, when humans ate a high proportion of plant matter that needed fermentation before digestion could occur.

APPENDICITIS

In defense of this thinking, appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency. Appendicitis hits 10% of the population, and occur in one out of 500 people each year. About 321,000 are hospitalized for appendicitis attacks each year, and three to four hundred Americans still die from appendicitis. It is very common between the ages of 10 and 30 and affects more men than women. Appendicitis is quite aware in people who have a high intake of dietary fiber.

WHY HAVE AN APPENDIX?

The appendix was proposed to play a role in immune mediated maintenance of symbiotic bacteria in the bowel. Researchers now contend that it is a specialized organ for harboring symbiotic bacteria that are essential for good health.

Since the opening of the appendix is narrowed and constricted, it escapes colonization by bacterial pathogens. The bacteria reconstitute after diarrhea rapidly finding the appendix a safe haven.

Natural selection may have well acted to maintain this organ. It was a big part of the digestive system in our primitive ancestors. Early man to digest tough leaves and bark may have used it.

Digestion continuously takes place in a watery slushy environment. The large bowel absorbs water and stores the rest of it until it's convenient to dispose. The first portion of the large bowel, houses the appendix.

The appendix, a three-inch long organ, is in a bad area. It is at the beginning of the colon where the small and large bowels join. This makes it a hot spot for infection. Having an opening in its middle, the appendix allows fecal matter to enter.
The appendix is a simple structure made up only of muscle and lined with lymphatic tissue. This lymphatic tissue produces antibodies and may be a part of our immune system.

FUNCTION OF THE APPENDIX

The appendix contains masses of lymphoid tissue that resist infection. Being densely populated with lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell, it may be truly an organ of the lymphatic system.

Duke University researchers found evidence that the appendix helps produce and protect the good bacteria in the bowels. It is a good bacterial factory that preserves and cultivates good bacteria nutrition to keep your body healthy.

Most of the good bacteria reside inside your body and helps you digest, absorb, and eliminate your food. These friendly microbes also give your skin a protective barrier.

The appendix stores and protects your good germs, and reboots your digestive system with good bacterial germs when needed.

Researchers and medical textbooks, as early as 1976, started admitting that the appendix functions as an organ of the lymphatic system, since it is dominated by lymphoid nodules and has a very rich blood supply.

Your body has been brilliantly designed were some organs can take over, when needed, the function of other organs. Despite one organ having a definite function, the body can still cope without it.

Your gallbladder stores bile from your liver and squirts bile into the bowel to help you digest your fat. However, when the gall bladder is removed, the bile is secreted continuously.


The appendix, containing cells called B. lymphocytes that manufactures several types of antibodies, as IgA immunoglobulins, are involved in surface and mucosal immunity. The immune system cells found in the appendix are there to protect the good bacteria.

The appendix has a thin and delicate inner layer called biofilm, which is composed of bacteria, mucus, and immune system molecules all living together on top of the lining of your bowels.

These good bacteria, living in the biofilm, prevent harmful bacteria from finding a place to locate. Because of its location and position, it is very difficult for anything to enter the appendix when the bowels are empty. Once the bowels contents are emptied, the good bacteria hidden in the appendix, can emerge and repopulate the lining of the bowel, before more harmful bacteria can take hold.

COMMENTARY

These days, repopulating your guts with good bacteria, is not that hard to do. If you have taken antibiotics recently, fermented foods, as probiotics, can help. Unfortunately, not all bacteria in our bodies want to harm us. Antibiotics do kill off large number of harmful bacteria that can save our lives, but it has no discretion between the killing off good bacteria or bad bacteria in the bowel.

Refined foods, as white sugar, white flour, polyunsaturated fats, and alcohol, all help harmful bacteria survive and reproduce. Our friendly bacteria, is under constant daily attack. This very fragile gut flora can easily be destroyed or compromised, by illnesses as the flu. Vomiting and diarrhea can purge the digestive tract of good and highly beneficial bacteria.

With modern sanitation in our industrialized society, removing the appendix may have no negative effects, since .a reserve of beneficial bacteria may not be as necessary.

Our systems are never challenged daily by parasites are other disease causing organisms, because of our hygienic environment. This results in higher rates of allergy and autoimmune disease.

When these immune systems are challenged, they overreact. This over reactive immune system can lead to inflammation, as seen with appendicitis, and lead to blockage that cause acute appendicitis.

If you have a healthy appendix, don’t let anyone remove it. It may be keeping you healthy.

Visit www.drneedles.com for more commentary on pertinent controversial medical subjects.

Source Duke University, Parker, Barbas, and NIH.
J. Evol. Biol.22, 1984 (2009