The Appendix - It Has a Purpose

The appendix has long been regarded as a vestigial organ. Having no purpose, apt to be removed by unnecessary and voluntary, though risky, surgery, sometimes becoming painfully inflamed. It is located at the intersection of the large and small intestines. Duke University Medical Center, DUMC, has found what it thinks may be the purpose of the appendix. And it's not so vestigial after all, though it doesn't find much use in Westerners and those living in highly industrialized countries.

The theory is that the appendix evolved in order to repopulate the intestines with beneficial bacteria in the event of a bad case of food poisoning, diarrhea, cholera, or similar afflictions that purge the lower intestine.

Due to the position of the appendix, it avoids such a purge of the lower intestine, but it still able to resupply and foster good bacteria in the meantime.

In spite of the fact that the Center for Disease Control says that nearly 400 Americans will die each year from appendicitis, being only a small percentage of the approximately 300,000 who are diagnosed with it each year, it is not advisable by any means to have the appendix removed as a surgery of convenience, if there is nothing wrong with it. Should you find yourself with a case of salmonella or something similarly nasty, your appendix would help you recover faster, or so it seems.

In industrialized, first-world countries, the inhabitants will find that when they are examined, there is little or nothing going on in the appendix. This is largely because the human body does not expend energy where it does not need to be expended. Due to cooking and antibacterials and antibiotics and such, there is not nearly as much bad bacteria coming into the body as in "uncivilized" countries, where raw meat or contaminated water might be consumed from necessity.
In unindustrialized, third-world countries, scientists have found that the appendix is, in fact, active. It is supplying the lower intestine with its stronghold of good bacteria to try to at least balance out the bad. Perhaps this is why people who eat raw fish or rare meat and have been doing so for a while tend to not get sick from it, while people who have been eating all their food well-cooked aren't as likely to fair so well.

It is interesting to note that, as Nicholas Vardaxis of the RMIT University says, "the more omnivorous animals become, then the smaller and less important the appendix becomes." The appendixes of koalas, he points out, are huge. The koala eats a diet entirely of eucalyptus leaves.

Moral of the story being, don't have your appendix removed just because you're afraid you might get appendicitis; it's pretty darn rare. The appendix is your friend, your friend that you, if you are a Westerner, probably haven't said hello to in a while.