New organ discovered in human body may explain spread of cancer
Source: New York Daily News
Scientists believe they may have discovered a new organ in the human body that could provide insight on cancer and other major diseases.
For centuries, experts and doctors thought layers of cells lining the digestive tract, lungs, arteries, veins and muscles were simply a wall of dense connective tissue. But a study published in Scientific Reports Tuesday instead identifies them as an inter-connected highway of fluid-filled channels scientists have dubbed the interstitium.
Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center Drs. David Carr-Locke and Petros Benias made the discovery while investigating a patient's bile duct for cancer.
If its confirmed to be an organ or a group of tissues with a unique structure performing a specific task it would take the skins place as the largest organ in the human body.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/new-organ-discovered-human-body-explain-spread-cancer-article-1.3901092
rurallib
(62,463 posts)this could really open some new horizons and thinking on the body.
Nitram
(22,907 posts)Scientists are just as likely as anybody to get stuck in the trap of perpetuating false assumptions that seem like common sense.
Aristus
(66,478 posts)It's small, and obscured by much larger muscles, which may explain why discovery took so long.
Nitram
(22,907 posts)tongue turned out to be completely wrong and based on work that had already been discredited.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/neat-and-tidy-map-tastes-tongue-you-learned-school-all-wrong-180963407/
Grammy23
(5,815 posts)to better health. The evidence is all around us in higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and many other disorders that what weve been feeding ourselves for the last 50 years is not working for us and, in fact, is working AGAINST us.
As a soon to be 28 year survivor of breast cancer, I hope the scientists are on to something new that could make cancer a thing of the past. As we look back on the medieval medical practitioners and shake our heads in disbelief at the things they did to try to defeat diseases, I am sure future generations will wonder about our naïveté at how the body works and how things can spiral out of control to death. The quest for knowledge goes on and will continue to go on as we try to unlock the mysteries of life.
bucolic_frolic
(43,362 posts)Someone told me it took a friend when it surrounded his heart, though don't quote me, it was a secondhand description.
volstork
(5,403 posts)really isn't new-- it was identified decades ago (think "interstitial cystitis" and other ailments). What IS unique is the consideration that it may be a single functional organ in and of itself. It will be interesting to see what might be discovered when thinking about it in this new way.
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,077 posts)... and it has always occurred to me that it was not given enough credit for spreading, "anti-oxidants"? in the thorax region, between the organs. I guess I SHOULD have gone to med school.
getagrip_already
(14,889 posts)volstork
(5,403 posts)ailsagirl
(22,899 posts)Thanks for posting!