Yet More Research Links Appendectomies and Parkinson's Disease 99
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Last October, researchers studied population data from more than a million Swedish residents and found that people who had their appendix removed were slightly less likely to develop Parkinson's. But other research has shown that there were no clear link between the two events. So Gregory Cooper and his team at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio decided to look with an even bigger microscope. They studied the electronic health records of more than 62 million Americans. Contrary to the October study, though, they spotted an increased risk of Parkinson's among those who had their appendix removed, roughly three times higher. And while Parkinson's starts becoming much more common in old age, a consistent added risk from appendix removal was even seen in those who developed it younger and across different ethnicities. "This is the largest study to date that's looked at this," Cooper told Gizmodo by phone this week. "And it's the most generalizable to the overall population, we think."
Cooper went on to say that this doesn't mean people shouldn't get an appendectomy if they need it: "Even with that threefold risk, it was still less than 1 percent of individuals who had an appendectomy and went on to develop Parkinson's. So in the grand scheme of things, it's a very low risk, and it shouldn't dissuade anyone from getting an appendectomy."
Cooper went on to say that this doesn't mean people shouldn't get an appendectomy if they need it: "Even with that threefold risk, it was still less than 1 percent of individuals who had an appendectomy and went on to develop Parkinson's. So in the grand scheme of things, it's a very low risk, and it shouldn't dissuade anyone from getting an appendectomy."
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Is cornfuzzling
Furthermore, they used that cheap spray-on confuzz.
It's also just correleation so far. (Score:1)
.. though on a grand-scale. Then again with results in the opposite direction among another group of people.
Anyway if 1% is too small of a risk to avoid doing it then what about all the anti-vaccination-lunatics.
Re: It's also just correleation so far. (Score:2, Interesting)
That and not getting an appendectomy isn't really an option. Nobody gets it removed voluntarily and if you have issues with it, there is no other option other than removal.
Mine was actually dead/dying when the surgeon removed it. If I kept it, I would have died within the next couple of days. So I'll take a minuscule increased chance of Parkinsons over that. And really all they might have found is a segment of the population to study further. What other common traits do those who've had an appendectomy a
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Well, it is a further argument in favor of attempting treatment through antibiotics first. It sounds like it's doesn't have a great track record, but successful enough that it's been advocated since the 90s as a less invasive first attempt. As the list of diseases for which an appendectomy is a risk factor grow, it seems increasingly wise to seek out a variety of less drastic treatments than removing an organ that used to be considered vestigial.
Re: It's also just correleation so far. (Score:4, Informative)
If you're talking to a surgeon first, then you have another problem. As a rule surgeons will usually recommend surgery - it's what they know (and they have a vested interest). They're the last people you want to go to for a first opinion about whether surgery is necessary.
I'm not talking about individuals though - if you're in acute danger then yes, you should take the advice of whatever expert is available. I'm talking about standard treatment plans accepted within the medical community. Clipping out an infected vestigal organ before it kills you is a no-brainer - so much of a no-brainer that it used to be common to remove healthy appendices "as long as you were in there" for some other reason. As we've come to realize that the appendix isn't actually vestigial, and plays an important role in recovering from intestinal infections, that's become much less common. And as we learn of other, more subtle health risks of removal it behooves us to more seriously consider less drastic treatments.
Of course this study is only showing correlation, not causation. Though if there's a similar correlation amongst people who had a healthy appendix removed then that would be a much stronger argument for causation.
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My surgeon got theirs taken out by the other cholecystectomy specialist in the hospital. Said they went strait to a Mexican restaurant and got a large m
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What's your point?
Pain and recovery time are negligible consequences of organ removal. And for organs like the gall bladder and appendix, whose functions are subtle or infrequently needed, the consequences of removal may only appear in statistical analysis.
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That is true.
There's also a lot of people who get their appendix removed because it's badly inflamed and doctors assume it will need to be removed eventually, rather than administering intensive antibiotics first to see if that will clear up the problem while leaving the appendix in place to continue doing its job.
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Re:It's also just correleation so far. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is it that people destined for Parkinson have a higher frequency of appendix issues?
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Or is it that the mind-control chemical the government puts in the water causes both appendicitis and Parkinson's in people with a certain genetic defect? More likely.
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Ah yes, that centralized water supply for the entire country that only a few trusted government henchmen have access to.
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I see you've been drinking the water
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Agreed. IBS is like dementia — a giant pile of unrelated diseases with different causes. They'll never find a single cause, because everybody is different. For some, it is probably an allergic reaction to food. For others, it is a yeast overgrowth. For others, it is a bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. For others, it is a c. diff infection that your body is semi-successfully keeping in check. If your doctor says you have IBS, ask for a second opinion.
Better yet, hit your gut with lar
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No. You missed the point. It's the bottled water and drinks that they've put the mind control substances in. And their sinister opposition invented all that stuff about BPA.
Re:It's also just correleation so far. (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably both.
For background, depending on how carefully you follow medical advancements, you might or might not be aware that there's mounting evidence that Parkinson's disease starts in the gut. There are differences in gut bacteria makeup between people who have Parkinson's disease and those who don't, and fecal microbiota transplants have proven useful in relieving the symptoms of that disease (not just the constipation that is often associated with Parkinson's, but the neurological symptoms as well).
If we start from that assumption, then the correlation really starts to look like causation in one direction or the other. But which way? To answer that question, we should consider whether people who have appendectomies have characteristics that make them different from the general population. In my mind, there are two such characteristics:
But if I had to pick just one direction for the correlation, I would guess that underlying immunological misbehavior is responsible for both the appendectomies and the Parkinson's disease.
Re:It's also just correleation so far. (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Appendectomies cause Parkinson disease, Or the factors that lead to Parkinson Disease also create the conditions where people will need an Appendectomy.
While I understand there has been a lot of interesting research on our microbial symbiosis and how bacteria effects our general health, and the Appendix is a factor in this. But normally the Appendix gets inflamed when the there is a problem. And it seems a big gap between bacteria in our gut, having such a large factor on a neurological condition.
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Actually, recent studies have shown strong interconnections between gut bacteria, the immune system, and neural functioning. The big gap is in the time between the appendix removal and the Parkinsonism. It's not implausible, but it does need investigation.
A surgeon's perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad did surgery for about 40 years in NY - the late sixties through the early aughts - and his approach to appendicitis was check the patient in an do observation. In his experience, about 75% of appendectomies are performed unnecessarily, that often they cool off on their own without the need for removal. As a teenager I went in with a hot appendix, and he had me wait in a hospital room for about 24 hours, and I ended up going home with my appendix, which I still have. The problem today is that insurance companies either want to cut you open or send you home (or both) - the wait and see attitude is not in their lexicon.
His advice: treat all surgery as critical. There are infections, anesthesia reactions, post surgical complications. Never cut open the human body if you don't need to. (You can imagine what he thinks of cosmetic surgery!).
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Colitis as in ulcerative colitis? If so I'm unsure what antibiotics are supposed to do against that.
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Sorry to hear about your troubles, but pseudomembranous colitis is almost certainly completely unrelated to your appendicitis from years earlier. Appendicitis can have many causes, with infection being a common one, but c. diff is *not* a common cause of appendicitis at all; the appendix is mostly protected from antibiotics and contains a very high concent
Re: A surgeon's perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in a family practice.
The physician in charge tells us every day:
1. Families are quirky. Make sure they are satisfied as long as they aren't endangering themselves. Without customers there is simply no practice.
2. Get the bills paid. Don't endanger a patient to get the bills paid but get them paid.
3. Don't pay too much for supplies. Don't endanger patients but don't pay too much for supplies.
4. You will never get fired as long as you are trying hard and improving.
5. Pharmaceutical reps are pretty and
Re:A surgeon's perspective (Score:5, Informative)
In some cases just giving massive doses of antibiotics instead of appendectomy may be an effective treatment.
https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk... [nihr.ac.uk]
Why we take out so many appendixes (Score:2)
As a teenager I went in with a hot appendix, and he had me wait in a hospital room for about 24 hours, and I ended up going home with my appendix, which I still have.
That is a risk you can take and most of the time it will work out more or less like that. But the problem is that if it does burst you have a non-zero chance of dying from not being surgically treated. In 2015 about 11.6 million cases of appendicitis [wikipedia.org] occurred globally which resulted in about 50,100 deaths. Basically chances are that you'll be fine but there is about a roughly 0.5% chance of you dying.
His advice: treat all surgery as critical. There are infections, anesthesia reactions, post surgical complications. Never cut open the human body if you don't need to.
Most surgeons and pathologists I've ever met have this attitude. Don't cut unless necessary. But someti
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Modern medicine is butchery, and intended to take your control of your body away from you. Like livestock. I'm sure your dad and most doctors are good people, but they are tools for the evil system.
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Disease takes control of your body from you. We are animals, like livestock. I think you are confused.
While I agree hospitals and doctors view patients as sausages on a conveyor belt, it's the only system we have. Use it, or suffer.
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Yeah, right. I had a colon perforation and an abscess. The surgeon was very much wait and see. In fact he'd written an article on how CT scans in my type of disease were usually not helpful.
Unfortunately in my case the inflammaton kept going and when I finally went to a different surgeon who did do the 'unnecessary CT scan' I needed emergency surgery and a colectomy.
The wait & see types can kill you just as dead.
less than 1 percent?! (Score:4, Insightful)
C'mon man - that's statistically insignificant and I bet you have a higher correlation of people who were anesthetized that went on to develop Parkinsons - ergo - Anesthesia might be linked to Parkinsons! I mean, you really should have that surgery still but just be alert about it! (no pun intended)
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it was still less than 1 percent of individuals who had an appendectomy and went on to develop Parkinson's
No, I didn't.
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FYI " statistically insignificant " actually means something specific to anyone who works with statistics: it means that the effect is unlikely to be the result of random chance or variation. A small observed effect can be extremely statistically significant; a large observed effect can be totally insignificant.
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It's not that there's less than a 1 percent correlation. They stated that the risk of Parkinson's is three times higher among those who have had an appendectomy. It's just that Parkinson's is very rare, so even the population with the higher percentage of Parkinson's still has a very low percentage - which has nothing to do with statistical significance.
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I read somewhere once that the surgeons motto was “If in doubt, cut it out”
What is this? (Score:2)
Putting growing risk percentages into perspective? What the hell is this, actual journalism??
One study showed decrease, another an increase (Score:2)
The saddest moment of my life (Score:2)
Bad statistics and P-hacking (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a really bad approach at statistical medicine. You can't just take EHR records and have them be reflective of your population. You have to account for a lot more than just the EHR records. People that don't go to the doctor often (as a life decision) will wait until their appendix needs to be removed and will wait until they have onset Parkinson's to get diagnosed. People that do go regularly (as a life decision) will often have preventative measures and healthier lifestyles that obviate the need for both full-on appendix removal and early onset Parkinson's. Both populations get both things done but frequency will be down while their record frequency will be more precise.
Also, it seems like this person is just comparing an entire database of EHR without regard to age. Younger people more often have younger doctors that use EHR. Older people still go to practices that don't have EHR.
The proper way of measuring this would be to take a statistically significant amount of people with Parkinson's and see how often they had their appendix removed and compare that to a randomly selected number of cohorts (same age/sex/etc distribution) and the frequency of appendix removal. Then put error bars on them.
Correlation and causation (Score:2)
Maybe it's because people who eat well (more fibers etc.) don't get appendicitis and because of this also get less Parkinson. And those who eat better also tend to be more active vs. living a more sedentary lifestyle?
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Or maybe when other researchers have literally taken photos of p-lectin molecules passing through a leaky gut and latching onto the vagus nerve and hitching a ride all the way up to the site of Parkinsons in the brain where they do their job and provoke an autoimmune reaction in the host, we should be paying attention to strong science, not weak association.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
https://parkinsonsnewstoday.co... [parkinsonsnewstoday.com]
There is a stronger association between exposure to insecticides and Parkinsons than b
I have an idea (Score:2)