Shaking hands of a Parkinson Getty Images / japatino patient

For a long time, Parkinson's disease (fibrillation paralysis) was still considered a brain disease, but many studies have also highlighted the role of the digestive system.

According to the AFP news agency, a study published in the United States yesterday, October 31, 2018, was particularly interested in a "redundant" organ, as its name suggests, the appendix.

Based on data on health status of 1.7 million Swedes, including some followed from the past half-century, the authors of this study proved that, when the appendix is ​​removed from a young age, the risk of Parkinson's disease is reduced by 17%.

The impact of appendectomy is most evident in rural Swedes, with the risk of Parkinson's disease reduced by up to 25%, while in urban areas a reduction in the risk of the disease has not been observed. observed.

The lead author of the study, Viviane Labrie of Van Andel Research Institute, Michigan, said that about people who have developed Parkinson's disease, the researchers found that the disease appeared on average 3 five and a half of those had had an appendectomy.

From the above results, the authors of the study think that the appendix may play a role at the onset of Parkinson's disease, but Labrie firmly emphasized that this organ's role is not only.

Parkinson's patients often experience digestive system problems, such as constipation, about 10 years or more before the first symptoms of fibrillation appear. That is why scientists are interested in the role of the digestive system.

The appendix alone is a storage site for gut bacteria and also seems to play a role in the immune system. This is also the home to a protein that is key to Parkinson's disease, called alpha-synuclein. This protein is in everyone's appendix, disease or not. So researchers speculate that an abnormal form of alpha-synuclein sometimes escapes from the appendix and heads toward the brain, damaging this organ and contributing to Parkinson's disease.

But the authors of the study emphasize that they do not recommend people to have appendectomy, in other words, they have not confirmed that anyone who cuts the appendix will not get Parkinson's!