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The appendix may have a purpose after all—and it’s not good news

If the appendix has a jam, it’s definitely the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go. The organ always tease, tease, teases us with the possibility of appendicitis, an inflammation that is potentially life threatening if left alone. This said, since the appendix has long been touted to serve no known function, surgeons will even remove it as part of near any routine surgery. “While I’m in there, amiright?” But that view has changed in recent years. New discoveries have led medical professionals to reassess the role of the appendix. Some experts believe it has an important role to play in our immune system, while others suggest a more sinister role.

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 Why the appendix is much more important than we once thought

The appendix has been shown to be an important component of immune function, especially in early life. It acts as a lymphoid organ similar to Peyer’s patches in the intestine, and contributes to the maturation of B lymphocytes (a variety of white blood cell) and the production of antibodies (type A immunoglobulin), which are crucial for controlling the density and quality of the intestinal microbiota. In addition, the appendix itself contains a very diverse and varied microbiota, including bacteria such as Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Fusobacteria. This diversity is distinct from other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, suggesting a specialised role.

 Your Appendix May Not Be Useless After All

When it’s not threatening to burst and put your life in danger, your appendix may actually be doing something. Based on converging observations, it has been hypothesized that our appendix may serve as a safe house for good bacteria. We have known for some time that bacteria exist in our gut and that they fulfill an important role. This gut microbiome is an important object of research, though commonly overhyped. The bacteria lining up our colon thus need to be there but what happens when you get severe diarrhea? You lose a lot of them. How do you replenish them quickly? The idea is that the appendix, which is known to host bacteria, would serve as a back-up. Following diarrhea, its bacterial content would recolonize the colon to bring the ill person back to normal. In an industrialized country with proper sewage and clean drinking water, this is a minor issue, but pre-industrialization, it would have been particularly beneficial.

Articles of Interest

What Does the Appendix Do?

The appendix is a small pouch-like organ of evolutionary significance that still triggers curiosity regarding its function.

Your appendix … it’s there for a reason

The appendix does not serve any useful purpose as a digestive organ in humans, and it is believed to be gradually disappearing in the human species over evolutionary time. However, even in 1976 medical textbooks were beginning to admit the appendix had functions:

Appendix Evolved More Than 30 Times

Study supports suggestion that structure has an important function

Is the mystery of the appendix close to being unravelled?

It is widely regarded as the body's least useful organ, a block of intestinal tissue that often becomes inflamed and occasionally threatens to kill us. But the appendix is getting a bad press, says US surgery expert Bill Parker. Far from being an organ of evil, it serves a very useful function – by acting as a safe house for beneficial bacteria in our bodies. In effect, the much-reviled organ is really a sanctuary for helpful microbes, explains Parker, an assistant professor of experimental surgery at Duke University medical centre, in Durham, North Carolina.

The appendix is not an unnecessary organ but is in fact correlated with a longer lifespan

Long considered an unnecessary organ, the appendix is now the focus of several studies that aim to better understand its role. Present in many mammals, including humans, it appears to have developed at least 16 times over the course of the evolutionary history of mammals, suggesting that its function must confer a positive selective advantage on those that have it.

The Appendix: How Important Is This Organ?

You’ve probably heard about the appendix. Chances are, you know someone who had their appendix removed due to appendicitis. But what is the appendix anyway. Many believe it’s a useless organ. But is it really? It turns out the appendix is not useless but may play an important role in your microbiome health.

The Appendix: Useful and in Fact Promising

Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought. And it's possible some of this organ's ancient uses could be recruited by physicians to help the human body fight disease more effectively.

The vermiform appendix: not a useless organ

The appendix has often been seen more as a nuisance rather than an important part of the human anatomy. Early misconceptions have led to the indiscriminate removal of the appendix from the body. Long thought to be an evolutionary remnant of little significance to normal physiology, the appendix has more recently been identified as an important component of mammalian mucosal immune function, particularly B-lymphocyte-mediated immune responses and extrathymically derived T-lymphocytes.

Why do humans have an appendix even though it is unnecessary?

The human cecal appendix is not completely unnecessary. In humans, the appendix is a small, dead-end tube that connects to the colon near where the small intestines feeds into the large intestines. Being a dead-end tube, the appendix can obviously not transport food and waste through the intestinal tract. Furthermore, many people have had their appendix removed and yet seem to suffer no symptoms at all from having no appendix. This fact may seem to indicate that the appendix is useless; an abandoned evolutionary relict of some ancient predecessor. But the appendix turns out to not be completely useless.

Your appendix is not, in fact, useless. This anatomy professor explains

Smith grew up to be a professor of anatomy at Midwestern University and editor-in-chief of a journal called The Anatomical Record. And all these decades later, Smith has made a mark in the field by studying the very organ that threw off her family's vacation plans in 1992. She acknowledges that the appendix has a bad rap as a useless organ that can cause you pain and require emergency surgery. "But it turns out recent research shows it does have functions that can help us," she says.