10 organs humans can actually do without

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The human body is an amazing mechanism that simply amazes with its endurance.

1. Gallbladder

The gallbladder is a small sac-shaped organ that stores bile. This is an enzyme that is produced in the liver and is involved in digestion.

Bile helps the body digest food - particularly fats and caffeine. It is thanks to her that we can digest cheeseburgers, fried potatoes drenched in mayonnaise, bacon, sandwiches with fish and butter and more. And to spice it all up with latte and cola is beauty.

Occasionally, indurations may appear in the bladder, which consist mainly of cholesterol. These are called gallstones. If you cannot get rid of them, taking special drugs, the organ can be removed.

A person who has undergone such an operation will have to give up fatty foods: they will be poorly digested.

However, if you do not lean on burgers drenched in butter and sprinkled with grated cheese, the gallbladder ceases to look like such a necessary contraption.

2. Appendix

Previously, the appendix, or the appendage of the cecum, helped absorb cellulose from plant foods. But over time, food became more easily digestible, and this organ ceased to participate in digestion.

However, the appendix still does all sorts of useful things, such as maintaining the gut microflora and producing immunoglobulins, proteins that help fight infection.

However, they are quite successfully produced in the bone marrow, so this organ can be dispensed with. Its inflammation, that is, appendicitis, is treated by surgical removal of the organ. Appendectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures. In the vast majority of cases, it has no harmful effects.

3. Lung

The lungs are very useful organs, because they allow a person to breathe. Nature, giving them to us, was clearly guided by the principle of aeronautical engineers: "It is better to duplicate important systems." These things are not only paired, but also equipped with everything necessary to function separately from each other.

There are many people who have had lung removal surgery and are doing well. Of course, they won't be Olympic runners. However, this organ alone is quite enough to assimilate oxygen.

For example, a certain Jorge Mario Bergoglio lost a lung at a young age due to pneumonia, but this did not prevent him from eventually becoming Pope Francis.

4. Stomach

The stomach is one of the most important organs of the human body. It accumulates and digests food, which serves as a source of life for us. It produces gastric juice and many other substances needed for digestion. It would seem that the stomach is simply necessary for existence. However, it is not.

Certain cancers and genetic disorders can lead to the need 1.

2. removal of this organ - partial or complete. And … even after such an operation, people continue to live and eat.

In this case, of course, you will need to strictly follow a certain diet and eat a little, but several times a day - after all, large amounts of food will have nowhere to accumulate. Over time, the body adapts to digest food using only one of the intestines.

5. Kidney

The kidneys are a pair of organs in the urinary system that filter various wastes and toxins from the blood and also produce a number of hormones that regulate blood pressure. Without them, the body will not last long if it is not helped.

The lives of people with kidney failure are supported by a hemodialysis machine. But this thing is very bulky, and you won't be able to carry it with you. And sitting with tubes attached to a car that filters blood is not particularly interesting to anyone. Therefore, kidney transplant is the most popular 1.

2. operation in transplantology.

So much so that jokes about the sale of this organ for the sake of solving financial problems are already in everyone's liver.

In order to live a normal life, even one kidney is enough. It is quite capable of performing all the necessary functions, although it increases in size. However, alcohol, junk food, and mineral water after a kidney transplant will be prohibited for the patient.

6. Large intestine

Another part of the digestive system that can be cut out is a piece of intestines. We are talking about such a fragment as the large intestine. By the time food passes the mouth, esophagus, stomach and small intestine, most of the nutrients from it are already absorbed. All that remains are indigestible fibers. The large intestine allows you to form feces from them, so that later they can be removed from the body.

Removal of the large intestine is performed 1.

2., for example, for the treatment of diverticulitis, cancer, ulcerative colitis, polyps, Crohn's disease, as well as for perforations or obstruction.

In fact, it is one of the ten most common operations in the world, otherwise called colectomy. After it, the remaining parts of the intestine gradually adapt and take over the functions of the remote. The patient will have to follow a special diet and avoid solid food, but he will live.

7. Spleen

While a person has not yet got out of the mother's womb into this harsh inhospitable world, his spleen is engaged 1.

2. the production of blood, creating erythrocytes and leukocytes for the growing member of society. After about the fifth month of pregnancy, she turns her attention to other tasks: making antibodies, storing old and damaged red blood cells and platelets, and killing abnormal blood cells.

It may seem that these are all very important functions. This is true. Still, removing the spleen is not fatal either.

Since this organ is constantly overflowing with blood, its injuries are dangerous and fraught with profuse internal bleeding, which can lead to death. Therefore, sometimes doctors decide to remove the damaged spleen before it bursts. This is called a splenectomy.

In people who have lost this organ, immunity decreases and they become E. P. Weledji. Benefits and risks of splenectomy / International Journal of Surgery are more vulnerable to various infections. After all, the spleen is one of the main sources of lymphocytes. But if you take antibiotics and vitamins on time, there will be no negative consequences for splenectomy.

8. Reproductive organs

The genitals are needed to create offspring. They can also be used to get a certain pleasure - but we have science here, not all frivolity. In general, it will also be possible to live without the reproductive system, regardless of whether we are talking about a man or a woman. Boring and sad, but possible.

The loss of reproductive organs also results in 1.

2. to disrupt the production of hormones that regulate the state of the human body, such as estrogen and testosterone. But this can be compensated for by taking special medications.

And, finally, throughout human history, there have been castrates in the world, completely dispensing with artificial hormones and substitution therapy.

9. Thyroid gland

The thyroid gland is a butterfly-shaped gland. It is located in the neck area and stores iodine, which the body needs for normal development and functioning, and also produces a large amount of hormones that control metabolism and cell growth.

It is one of the most important parts of the endocrine system.

It is all the more surprising that a person, in principle, is able to do without a thyroid gland. Its removal, thyroidectomy, is one of the most common operations in the world and is used in the presence of malignant tumors or goiter.

A person who has undergone thyroidectomy will have to take special medications and synthetic hormones, in particular levothyroxine, throughout his life, without which the metabolism will be disrupted and the patient will die. But if hormone therapy is followed, the patient will continue to live as usual.

10. Most of the brain

Then you probably grabbed your head and exclaimed: well, this is too much! Life is impossible without a brain! No jokes about mumble rap fans and TikTok regulars.

Yes, you can't live without a brain at all. But, as observations show, very many parts of it are not so necessary for existence.

For example, about 15 years ago 1 came to a clinic in Marseille.

2. a man complaining of leg pain. He was examined, just in case, sent for an MRI. There were no difficulties with the treatment of the leg, but the tomography showed that the patient has more serious problems than a banal blood clot. The poor guy was missing 90% of his brain.

A disease called hydrocephalus, or dropsy of the brain, almost completely destroyed the gray matter in the Italian's head. His skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. However, this did not prevent the surviving parts of the brain from taking over the functions of the lost parts.

Hydrocephalus may be age-related, but more often it appears due to fetal malformations. Usually babies with this condition do not live long. But our patient was 44 years old at the time of hospitalization. He worked as a small tax clerk, had a family, two healthy children and was completely unaware of what the horror was going on in his head.

The fellow did not shine with intelligence and had an IQ of only 75 points. But this did not interfere with paperwork.

However, the disease may not even affect mental capacity. In 1980, John Lorber, a hydrocephalus physician at the University of Sheffield in England, described an astonishing case. He was approached by a mathematics student with a complaint about the unusual shape of the skull.

The patient was examined and found that most of his skull was filled with cerebrospinal fluid, and the tiny brain, compressed to the limit, floated somewhere in it. At the same time, the young man's IQ was 126 points, he had a degree in mathematics and demonstrated brilliant aptitude for the exact sciences.

The flexibility of the brain and the ability of this organ to overcome even such severe damage is simply amazing.