Sheriff and his colleagues sifted out 488,190 patients who'd undergone an appendectomy. Of those, they found 4,470 also developed Parkinson's disease.The findings are correlational, which is to say they show a relationship but not what that relationship might be. A might cause B, B might cause A, or some third unknown C might cause both, directly or indirectly.
Comparing these with the 177,230 Parkinson's cases who still had their appendix revealed a startling contrast.
Based on these figures, having your appendix removed makes it three times more likely you'll be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease some time later in life.
One thing is beginning to be clear, we’ve paid too little attention to the complex microbial goings-on in our intestinal tract. It appears they may influence other apparently independent bodily processes.
