Scientists figure out what the appendix is doing
Updated Fri. Oct. 5 2007 4:50 PM ET

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut.

That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.

For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most of it is good and helps digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria,'' said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker, a study co-author. Its location _ just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac -- helps support the theory, he said.

Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs, Parker said.

That use is not needed in a modern industrialized society, Parker said. If a person's gut flora dies, they can usually repopulate it easily with germs they pick up from other people, he said. But before dense populations in modern times and during epidemics of cholera that affected a whole region, it wasn't as easy to grow back that bacteria and the appendix came in handy.

In less developed countries, where the appendix may be still useful, the rate of appendicitis is lower than in the U.S., other studies have shown, Parker said.

He said the appendix may be another case of an overly hygienic society triggering an overreaction by the body's immune system.

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Well, that makes sense.

And all along they said it was a useless organ! I just wonder how many things they claim as medical facts today, will be discovered as totally false in a few years from now?

Well, look at how many people had their tonsils out because they were thought to be useless. Now, doctors try not to take them out unless they absolutley have no other alternative.

That is so true...My two girls had them out when they were young, but when it came to my son, they said he would outgrow it, and he did...They did take out his adenoids though, he sounded like a truck driver when he was sleeping... Oh, I've never slept with a truck driver, so I don't know how I would know that....

i am actually quite suprised with this finding. just wandering whats next?!

so have i got this right? you have less chance of appendicitis if you live in a less developed country and ingest less germs?

Sounds like you don't have much faith in modern medicine.

For modern humans living in a developed society (which is US and OUR medicine) it IS a useless organ, causing more problems than it solves. Simply because we didn't know what it did (because it wasn't DOING it anymore in modern developed countries) doesn't mean that we don't have a good handle on other things.