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robynjade13
robynjade13
07 October 2007 @ 12:46 pm
this is so cool  
okay, i admit i'm a dork in a lot of ways, probably the creepiest of which is my fascination with human bacterial flora. i would never want to study it-- there's a lab in our department that did a massive year-long study to determine when infants' guts are colonized, which required-- you guessed it-- a year of stool samples from both the babies and their parents. not my idea of a good time. but it's cool to read about.

which is why this story is so awesome. researchers now think that the appendix isn't useless after all-- that it may function as a "safe house" for a small sample of gut flora in the eventuality that the rest of the gut is sterilized for any reason (for instance, cholera and dysentery both... well... flush out that ecosystem.) then the protected bugs in the appendix can help immediately start the process of recolonization.

system biology is so cool-- everything has its purpose after all!
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Theresa[info]tt6681_theresat on October 7th, 2007 08:28 pm (UTC)
Huh. That is interesting.

I wonder if it's true that people can pick up useful gut flora from other people - thus making the apendix less useful in developed societies, like they said, or if it's just that we have hygeine to a point where diseases like cholera aren't problems anymore. An interesting study would be to compare the recolinization of bacteria in the gut of people who have had appendectimies to those who haven't after some condition that causes cleansing (I wonder if there are more common diseases that can cause this, so it could be studied in a population without having to artificially induce it?...if it had to be induced, I'm not sure who would sign up for that study! I'm not sure how one would go about doing the study, since antibiotics would presumably disrupt the bacteria residing in the appendix as well as the bacteria in the gut).

I agree completely, though, that while gut bacteria are interesting, it is much better to let someone else study them.
robynjade13[info]robynjade13 on October 7th, 2007 09:08 pm (UTC)
i agree that the appendectomy studies would do a lot to complete the studies. and that developed societies are probably a difficuly context to pursue this area of research. though there are still things that might at least partially clear the gut flora-- I know, for instance, that before colonoscopies people fast for a while and take some sort of flushing medicine (though i have no idea whether that takes bacteria with it.) definitely not the level of cholera, definitely (and thankfully!)

heh, basically, this would be fun to look into for a class paper or off-thesis quals or something, but definitely not as a career ;)
petefred[info]petefred on October 8th, 2007 03:58 am (UTC)
Things like this are why I like biology so much :)

BTW, have you run across this anywhere else? I can't seem to find the paper on pubmed, and cnn doesn't mention the journal...
petefred[info]petefred on October 8th, 2007 03:15 pm (UTC)
Looks like this is it, in case anyone is interested.