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GETTY IMAGES It turns out that Charles Darwin was wrong about the appendix. This cylindrical organ, about 10 centimeters long and attached to the cecum (the first part
It turns out that Charles Darwin was wrong about the appendix.
This cylindrical organ, about 10 centimeters long and attached to the cecum (the first part of the large intestine), with no outlet, has been a mystery for centuries.
Jacopo Berengario da Carpi, an Italian physician, first described the appendix in 1521.comment« and described it as a small empty space.
Leonardo da Vinci theorized that it was a place to trap excess gas and prevent the bowels and colon from bursting during bouts of constipation.
Andreas Vesalius used the word ‘addition’ for the first time in 1543 and compared it to a worm.
The Swiss botanist Caspar Bauhin guessed in 1579 that this was a container for the feces of a fetus during pregnancy, a kind of mini-toilet.
The 18th-century Italian anatomist Giovanni Dominico Santorini believed it was the natural habitat of intestinal worms, which needed a “warm, quiet place to live.”
In his book “The Descent of Man” (1871), which he wrote on the theory of evolution, without a very convincing theory, Darwin assumed that the appendix actually had no function and was a vestigial organ that had lost its reason for existence. a result of changes in diet or habits”.
That’s probably what they taught you at school.
However, as early as the mid-20th century, with the development of tools to take a closer look at our organs, the idea that the appendix was only used to flare up and put lives at risk began to fade.
And in the 21st century, scientists have discovered: a little far from.
In 2007, a team at Duke University Medical Center made a breakthrough when they discovered that the appendix has a rich biofilm.
It is a layer of beneficial bacteria that lives in our intestines and helps us extract nutrients and energy from food. Also, when they digest fiber, they produce short-chain fatty acids that can pass into your bloodstream and brain to protect you.
The mysterious and despised organ was then like a reservoir them bacteriumIt’s ready to refill the gut if we lose them, like when we have diarrhea or take antibiotics.
This was something Darwin could never have predicted, because he lived long before scientists recognized the existence of the human microbiome.
And there was something else.
Decades ago, it was discovered that the appendix has a high concentration of gut-associated lymphoid tissue, or GALT, but at the time it was not known that GALT helps stimulate the immune system in case of an invading pathogen.
So in addition to being a storage place for bacteria, it plays a role in understanding when the gut is threatened and how to respond.
Six years later, another Duke University Medical Center study found that people without an appendix are at risk for a very nasty and dangerous bacterial infection: Clostridium difficile or C difference
However scientists also discovered something that surprised them: anti-evolutionists used their research to their advantage.
They had inadvertently refuted something that Darwin, above all, was perhaps the most common example cited in textbooks and educators as evidence for natural selection.
According to the claims of creationists, scientists had shown that the theory of evolution was invalid.
“Darwin was wrong about the vestigial appendix,” Heather Smith, a professor of anatomy at Midwestern University in Arizona, told the BBC. however aopenor violently: “That doesn’t mean he’s wrong about his theories of natural selection and our understanding of adaptation.”
As a matter of fact, his own research has shown that far from refuting the theory of evolution, culture also confirms it.
In 2017, Smith and a group of colleagues decided to compare human appendage to that of 533 mammalian species.
Uncovering more than 80 million years of history, they formed a consensus phylogeny of mammals. great family tree.
You can collect and map data with it, and this will allow you to tell how many times a particular feature, in this case the extension, has evolved.
“We determined that the appendix evolved about 30 different times throughout mammalian evolution, and that means it performs an important function, otherwise it wouldn’t have continued to appear in evolution.”
In evolutionary terms, The fact that an organ appears, remains and does not disappear is a good indication that it is useful in some way.. Even more so if it occurs in several different mammalian lineages.
Ours came into existence 32 million to 20 million years ago and is still there, so this study tells us that while we don’t know exactly what the appendix is, it does something important.
Seen as an unnecessary organ, it has become the focus of many studies to better understand its function.
One of them, inspired by that large family tree of Smith’s team, published in July 2021 by researchers from Inserm and the French Museum of Natural History, analyzed data on 258 mammal species and found that the presence of the appendix was associated with increased longevity.
On the other hand, some cutting-edge research shows a connection between the gut and the brain, known as the gut-brain axis.
“One of the most exciting areas in brain science and neurology right now is the growing appreciation of the gut and gut microbiota in neurogenerative diseases,” Professor John Cryan from New York University told the BBC. subject.
In this field, an expert on the gut-brain axis, although the research is still unclear, “one thing is clear: we cannot ignore the attachment regarding gut-brain signals.”
Despite all this, there are situations where we really can’t live with appendicitis.
Although a growing number of studies (including a meta-analysis of a trial involving 404 pediatric patients) are finding that antibiotic therapy can be as effective as surgery in non-severe cases of appendicitis, surgery is generally not a safe option.
A ruptured appendix is ​​a serious medical emergency. can kill peopleand a severely damaged or cancerous appendix must be removed.
Not only is it proven that we can live a full and happy life without it, but none of this means that appendectomy performed in a human for the treatment of appendicitis has an effect on longevity.
Appendicitis at an early age is clearly beneficial as it strengthens the training of the immune system and allows it to fight subsequent infections more effectively.
Therefore, the treatment indicated for appendicitis is still appendectomy.
What the recent history of this part of our anatomy teaches us is this: The human body is extremely complex and We still have a long way to go understand.
* Part of this article is based on the chapter“Annex” from the BBC’s “Made of Stronger Stuff” series
Source: El Nacional
Alice Smith is a seasoned journalist and writer for Div Bracket. She has a keen sense of what’s important and is always on top of the latest trends. Alice provides in-depth coverage of the most talked-about news stories, delivering insightful and thought-provoking articles that keep her readers informed and engaged.
