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Appendix’s role

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 the gut.

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

For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors could find no function for it. Surgeons removed them routinely.

And when infected, the appendix can turn deadly. It becomes inflamed quickly, and some people die if it is not removed expeditiously. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalised with appendicitis, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria that populates the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Most of the bacteria are good and help 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 Professor of Surgery Bill Parker, a co-author of the study. The location of the appendix, 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. — AP

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