Why Are Fewer People Getting Appendicitis?

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Rates of appendicitis vary around the world, likely due to the forces of modernization.

**Appendix** - There are many other unforeseen health changes that seem to be related to the forces of modernization, like the increase in rates of diabetes, Crohn’s disease, and ADHD. Those changes likely stem from all sorts of complicated genetic and environmental interactions - including changes in diet, exposure to pollution, and access to hygiene - that researchers haven’t yet figured out.

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To learn more, start your googling with these keywords:
Fecalith: A stony mass of feces inside a person’s intestinal tract.
Appendix: A tube-shaped sac at the bottom of a person’s intestinal tract.
Appendicitis: A painful inflammation of the appendix.
Fiber: Plant-derived dietary material that’s resistant to certain digestive enzymes.
Tertiary Food Processing: Commercial production of food that often contains synthetic elements or an overabundance of certain salts and sugars.
“Western Diet”: A collective term for a diet high in fat, cholesterol, protein, sugar, and salt, that often involves frequent consumption of “fast food”.
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Credits (and Twitter handles):
With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Ever Salazar, Peter Reich

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References:

Kaplan, G. (2018). Personal communication. Assistant professor, The Gastrointestinal REsearch Group, University of Calgary.

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When i was like 7 or 8 i learned about the appendix from brainpop and was terrified that mine would explode at any time

BlackieSootfur
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Got mine removed during a surgery. Had nothing to do with my appendix. They were just in the general area and thought to themselves "Might as well remove it now while we're at it, before he has problems with it in the future."

teatime
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I had my removed just over 5 years ago in early July 2016. It started just after eating lunch. I thought the pain would go away. I even had my snacks during the movie that afternoon. The pain was still around. I didn’t feel like eating that evening. I drove home. I went to bed and woke up early and the pain got worst just after sleeping a couple of hours. I decided to sleep on my recliner for a couple more hours. It was so hard for me to get up from my recliner. My mother came in my apartment to help me in getting up to used the bathroom. I changed clothes. It was so painful in walking towards her car. I was so thirsty so I drank some water. I didn’t felt feverish because it was so hot outside. It was the pain on my right side. That I complained about in walking. My mother drove me to the ER at the hospital. We both waited in the ER for the doctor. Shortly after that I was in the ER. I was wheeled in the operating room to remove the appendix. The doctor cut a big incision on my right side of my belly. I was out during a 3 hour surgery. When I woke up that I was in the recovering room after the surgery. I forgot where I was for a couple of seconds. I was wheeled into a hospital room to sleep overnight. I felt like my old self slowly again. The next day that I had a different type of bed. It was an air mattress. The first bed broke on me. They replaced it with a different one. I even joked around with the nurses that were on duty. I hate it when I don’t eat a couple of days. I was so hungry by Friday afternoon. I listened to the doctor’s orders on food in the hospital. My mother was surprised how I bounced back so quickly after the surgery. I did go very lightly in my cycling classes but, I waited for the other class about a whole month. That class that I took it easy. I still have 2 out of 3 scars from that surgery.

Beth
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My favourite new word of the week: Fecalith! Haha love it!

Brainstorm
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I just had my appendix removed last night. Crazy how this video appeared in my feed. Currently recovering and hopefully I go home today without any problems.

boanerf
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An other day, an other poop video from Minute Earth

Jeroen_Ech
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Wow I wasted a whole 2 minutes of my life to hear we don’t know

BossManShire
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Avoid the term "processed foods" in discussions like this where little is known. Stick to mechanism. Maybe it was less fiber? More sugar? Be more specific, because "processed foods" is a near meaningless blanket term the way people use it.

HisCarlnessI
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In my opinion (backed by zero actual evidence because I'm not a nutritionist or anything), the issue beginning to resolve itself in the US has to do with two factors: 1) As you mentioned, our appendices (appendixes?) have gotten used to the garbage we put it them, and B) processed food is a LOT healthier than it was in the 80s. Most restaurants now brag about using fresh foods, so I can see why it's started to decline.

MustyMouse
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Your boy here got his appendix removed 🙌🏻

vincentkhang
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The US's over use of antibiotics in recent decades might also be helping tame appendicitis numbers.
As recent studies are showing surgery is not needed, but a careful treatment of antibiotics for appendicitis treatment.
Having a steady exposure to antibiotics, might be temporarily(until resistance surges) helping keep appendicitis's bacteria in check, at least more so than in the past.

TheNinjaDC
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Fun Fact, in my native tongue, the appendix is known as the "Blind Intenstine"

supervegito
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I think I learned more from the comments than the video :/. It sounds like there was a lot of appendix removal for no other reason than "might as well, " but modern doctors tend to do it less. Likely because the appendix has been found to have some minor uses, plus I think modern medicine is more wary of doing things without the patient's consent unless it's absolutely required.

logicalfundy
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I had a very mild case of appendicitis when I was 19. It didn’t feel mild at all, but the contrast CT(previous abdominal ultrasound showed nothing abnormal) only showed a small bright spot at the tip of my appendix and another "small abdominal mass". The appendix wasn’t blocked, so the doctors felt safe admitting me overnight. I had a cold sweat the next morning, and soon after I had surgery. They did a laparoscopic appendectomy. When they did histology on my appendix, I had sporadic mucosal inflammation and the only place I had transmural inflammation was right at the tip, exactly where the bright spot was on the CT. The surgeon also saw though that I had cysts on my ovary. They didn’t do anything about the cysts because it wasn’t concerning at all, they were simple, clear fluid, most likely cycle related cysts. However, they did tell me that the cysts were probably causing most of the pain I felt before the surgery. I looked it up and sure enough, ovarian cysts are an appendicitis mimic.

I recovered well physically from the surgery. However, I did have a side effect that kicked in a week or two after the surgery. I suddenly couldn’t eat gluten, I was sensitive to it. I would get dizzy if I ate anything with gluten and it would make me feel even hungrier than I was before I ate. This sensitivity lasted for months, but has since gone away. During that time I was gluten sensitive, I was also constipated like almost constantly. It didn’t matter how much water I drank or how much fiber I ate. Even the magnesium oxide that I used to take sometimes when constipated did almost nothing. And carrots and aloe can only do so much for constipation. That constipation issue resolved when I could finally reintroduce gluten into the diet.

I don’t know if this temporary gluten sensitivity is just related to the effects of having surgery in general or if it is appendectomy specific as I haven’t had surgery for any other reason. But I suspect it’s appendectomy specific, that without the appendix to keep the microbiome alive and well and to moderate the immune system’s effects, it started going a bit crazy and attacking the gluten, and that going gluten free for months calmed things down to the point where I could reintroduce gluten, sort of like how my pollen allergies have gotten milder over the years, but instead of just getting milder, it stopped completely. That’s just my thoughts on it though.

caterscarrots
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I heard about a story where a girl in an orphanage with eleven other girls, she liked it living in Paris but one night she started crying for no reason, then the person in charge rushed to the girl and called 9-1-1, and then the doctors went there ASAP and calmed her down, life wasn't the same without her so everyone brought her gifts and went to the hospital and interacted with her, she says that her appendix exploded and she went to surgery to remove it, when everyone went home and went to bed they all started crying because they're afraid they might get they're appendix explode, so the person in charge went there ASAP and told them that everything's okay.

HBKnowItAll
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Well, it comes as no surprise that more than just our body weight comes from what we eat, but I had no idea appendix is so moody.🤓

rea
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I will, thankfully, will never have to worry about appendicitis. I had surgery when I was about 1, because my large intestine had kind of telescoped in on itself(? I'm not entirely sure, exactly, that's just how my mom has explained it, so I'm not sure how much my mom's memory of what happened may have changed, over the years). But while they were already operating on me, the doctors decided to remove my appendix, so I wouldn't have to worry about problems with it later on.

camdensnyder
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The prison and military eat/ate standardized diets, it would be interesting comparing those stats given they were a captive audience.

Nice vids MinuteEath, thank you for posting...LLP

randybrush
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*"It turns out that we eat a lot of sugar when it's warm outside"*

...



I LIVE IN A TROPICAL AREA ;-;

PawfulpOreos
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Title of the video:
"Why Are Fewer People Getting Appendicitis?"


1:33
"... we're not exactly sure why."


Wow MinuteEarth, great video! Keep it up, proud of you!

zippienippi