[ad_1]
There seems to be a link between the degenerative neurological disorder Parkinson's disease and your appendix. Just what relationship might be, nobody can agree upon, but here we are so far.
Late last year, an analysis of 1.7 million people found you were 25 percent less likely to develop the condition if you had your appendix removed. Now a bigger study says the complete opposite. Believe it or not, this is science working perfectly.
Physician Mohammed Z. Sheriff from Case Western Reserve University knows better than most just confusing all this might seem.
Overcoming Parkinson's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, or Parkinson's Disease, or has absolutely no effect whatsoever.
The cause for the intense interest is a protein believed to be behind Parkinson's; that protein is also found in the following gut inflammation.
"Parkinson's has been diagnosed with alpha-synuclein, a protein found in the gastrointestinal tract early in the onset of Parkinson's," says Sheriff.
Focus has fallen on the appendix, largely due to its potential role in providing a safe harbor for the protection of microflora, leading to suspicion that it may cause levels of alpha-synuclein to increase.
But science needs more than gut feelings. It needs a balance of evidence. So, what do you have to do with this appendectomies? Raise, lower, and have zero effect on your chances of developing the disorder.
So Sheriff pulled out the really big guns. Like, 62,218,050 of them.
From this huge databank of US electronic health records, Sheriff and his colleagues sifted out 488,190 patients who'd undergone an appendectomy. Of those, they found 4,470 also developed Parkinson's disease.
Comparing these with the 177,230 Parkinson's cases who still had their appendix revealed a startling contrast.
Your doctor will be diagnosed with Parkinson 's disease after you have been diagnosed with Parkinson' s disease.
That's not saying that this tiny nub of the intestinal flesh somehow causes the degeneration of nervous tissue responsible for Parkinson's symptoms. But it does suggest something is going on.
"This research shows a clear relationship between the appendix, or appendix removal, and Parkinson's disease, but it is only an association," Sheriff says.
"Additional research is needed to confirm this connection and to understand the scheme."
Aside from a detailed abstract, there's a little bit of the team's work at this stage. Sheriff will be presenting his data at a digestive disease conference in a little over a week.
The results will be discussed, and hopefully encouraged in the brain, if they do so at all.
It's tempting to throw our hands up and think science is broken. But conflicting results like these often highlight deeper complexities on how to health science works.
It's a case of 'watch this space' for more studies to weigh in and reveal hidden details.
Meanwhile, what are we doing?
Aside from being a curiosity … not much. Nobody should get their appendix removed simply to avoid developing Parkinson's disease.
These numbers – as scary as they might look – need to be taken into context.
In 2016, an estimated 6.1 million people around the world had Parkinson's disease. That's roughly 1 to 2 out of every 1,000.
Not that this really helps you calculate your individual risk. Your individual chances of developing the condition in the future depend on a wide variety of factors, from your health habits to your genes, where you live to your level of income.
Strangely, smoking actually lowers your risk of developing as much as 40 percent. Given the variety of health concerns that arise with tobacco use, no one is going to suggest you to buy cigarettes on the back of this news.
Likewise, we suggest you only worry about your appendix if it's about to pop, and keep your eyes open for the next chapter in this fascinating, if strange, saga.
[ad_2]
Source link