Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Appendix might not be "useless"

Next time your doctor suggests you get rid of "useless" body parts (e.g., tonsils,; not so long ago they recommended women get rid of the old' uterus when it wasn't needeed anymore because it might become cancerous some day...even thought penile and testicular cancer exists as well), you might want to reconsider.

If you read my Natural Health article, you'll see that unless you eat unpasteurized, artisanally fermented foods, as people of old used to do daily, you probably aren't getting too much beneficial bacteria, which is essential for health. It turns out the appendix might have evolved as a storage pouch for these pro-biotics:

(NewsTarget) Theorists may have unlocked the purpose for the appendix, the organ in the gut at the juncture of the large and small intestine, long thought useless. The theory calls upon observations and experiments done at Duke University Medical Center.

While not definitive, it seems that the purpose for the vestigial organ could be to repopulate the gut with beneficial bacteria after a catastrophic die-off. If the body has an exceptionally bad bout of food poisoning, diarrhea, cholera or otherwise purges the contents of the lower gut, the beneficial flora are eliminated as well.

The position of the appendix is such that it avoids the purge. The beneficial bacteria within the appendix can repopulate the gut prior to bad bacteria gaining a foothold. Some have compared it to "rebooting" the gut, which is a major part of all good holistic colon cleanse programs.

Surgeons are quick to point out that in a "modern industrial society" the purpose of the appendix is marginalized by advances in modern medicine. According to the CDC 300 to 400 Americans die from appendicitis each year out of the approximately 320,000 who are diagnosed with it. It is for this reason that the CDC and surgeons recommend having the appendix removed in the event of inflammation.

Professor Douglas Theobald of Brandies University says that the idea “seems by far the most likely” explanation, and it “makes evolutionary sense.”

This news could cause a less cavalier approach to the removal of other “useless” body parts. Professor Gary Huffnagle of the University of Michigan says, “I'll bet eventually we'll find the same sort of thing with the tonsils.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bills to Ban Aspartame Progress in Hawaii; Tactics and Consumer
Considerations

Greetings from New Mexico!

I am grateful for the broad Hawaiian support thus far for the bill to ban
aspartame, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener, from human consumption or
sale, which I hope will be heard soon and strongly support in the Senate
Health Committee and in the House Health, and Consumer Protection and
Commerce Committees. I was the main force behind this massive effort in the
NM legislature in 2006 and 2007, and I can share with readers a few insights
on the pitfalls and stumbling blocks that will be thrown at this legislation
by corporate lobbyists representing some very evil doing corporations in the
USA and in Japan which manufacture and use this poison to save a few bucks
on adding real sugar as a sweetener.

I have been discussing this at length with Dr. Adrian Chang of Honolulu, the
nuclear engineer and force behind the very brilliant and ultimately
successful effort to stop fluoride being added to municipal water supplies,
thanks to the Oahu County government's decision to not add fluoride.

I am sure that these Hawaii bills to ban Aspartame can be passed, despite
blatantly corporate-serving and corporate-lobbyist-advanced theories that
all of these concerns are entirely pre-empted by the federal authorities, or
that Hawaii state government would automatically be sued by manufacturers.
About the worst to legislators in Hawaii that could happen if one of these
bills passes and is signed by Gov. Lingle is that the FDA Commissioner, Dr.
Von Eschenbach, would be forced to revoke the approval for aspartame, which
should rightly have been done long ago.

This legislative passage could occur with the right help from the Medical
community in Hawaii, particularly the experts in toxicology, internal
medicine, pediatrics, oncology and biochemistry at the University of Hawaii
School of Medicine. I encourage Hawaiians to contact whomever you consider
as both ally and as impeccable and unimpeachable sources of testimony at the
Medical school and in the Medical community, who can come and testify and/or
write a strong letter to the Committee members.

We will generate strong letters of support from the three top mainland
physicians in this regard, who are really the top leaders in the world on
aspartame's proven medical and neurodegenerative harm, and all readers of
this would do well to easily google and read their articles:

HJ Roberts,Internist; Russell Blaylock, Neurosurgeon; and Ralph Walton,
Psychiatry. All wrote great letters to the entire New Mexico Legislature
members, and readers should take the time to google and read their articles.

The New Mexico bills were overwhelmed and eviscerated by the most vicious
corporate lobbyists I have ever encountered, representing Ajinomoto of
Japan, the world's largest manufacturer of both aspartame and MSG, as well
as their duped American corporate henchmen/partners-in-poisoning who use
massive amounts of Aspartame, like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Altria/Kraft Corporate
Services, and others. The same corporations and even more will show up in
Honolulu, make no mistake, probably to include Wrigley's Gum, all of whose
products contain aspartame, which is metabolized as methanol and
formaldehyde, and even more dangerous since gum releases poisons absorbed
under the tongue, which go directly to the brain.

In Santa Fe in 2006 and 2007, there was a regrettable and probably
avoidable strong partisan context (which we hope will prove irrelevant in
Hawaii) since so much criticism was leveled at Donald Rumsfeld, aspartame
progenitor when he was CEO of G.D. Searle, the patent holder, back in 1981
in one of the darkest and dirtiest chapters of the checkered history of
failures at the FDA, when Rummy as part of the Reagan Transition Team,
forced the appointment of a crony, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, as FDA
Commissioner, in exchange for agreeing to approve aspartame, despite 16
years of the FDA saying no, based on the obvious and rudimentary toxic
biochemistry of its metabolized components.

The first salvos against ignorance and for true consumer protection in
Hawaii have very recently been fired in the news report on KHON-2, a rather
conservative station and Fox Affiliate in which the predicatble professor
from the Medical school basically said "a little bit doesn't or won't hurt
you." Of course, this is absurd: a whole lot of little bits of poison are
cumulative and end up killing you, whether through cancer, heart disease,
Multiple Sclerosis, etc.

We hope to see a Hawaii Capitol Press conference with the bills' sponsors
(Kalani English, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Mele Carroll, and Calvin Say) to
illuminate the press about the medical harm done by aspartame!

I have communicated a basic letter to the editor to all of the press and all
of the radio stations in Hawaii, but few have responded thus far. Nothing
will really take shape, I fear, without massive press coverage, and we were
able to achieve that in New Mexico, which included all of the main
television stations in New Mexico.

Readers should watch the online posting of the brilliant documentary, SWEET
MISERY, the DVD by a recovered victim of aspartame poisoning in Tucson, Cori
Brackett, the most convincing possible communique on this subject, according
to the New Mexico Senate sponsor, Jerry Ortiz y Pino.

Please let me hear from you if you have questions or want to contact your
friends, family, or colleagues in Hawaii to get this done....

Thank you, and Mahalo,

Stephen Fox
Managing Editor of Santa Fe Sun News
Founder, New Millennium Fine Art

217 W. Water St.
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505 983-2002
stephen@santafefineart.com