Body Parts You Don’t Need to Survive
After an accident you can survive without certain body parts. Some perform no modern function whatsoever and are known as vestigial body parts, i.e., evolutionary leftovers. Others support necessary bodily functions, but you can still survive without them. If you’ve ever wondered what you can live without, here’s your answer.
Vestigial Body Parts
These are the body parts you can live without, because they no longer serve a necessary function:
- Wisdom teeth. Over time, the ancient human diet shifted from difficult-to-chew foods to softer and more processed foods. Wisdom teeth were necessary once, but provided little purpose after our jaws decreased in size. Today, only some people have these unnecessary teeth, which are likely to experience impaction in a smaller jaw.
- Appendix. This is a small recess located off the side of cecum (in the digestive tract). The appendix plays no readily known function in the human body. Some researchers suggest the organ may protect good bacteria in the gut while others believe it serves no purpose in modern life. Unless you experience painful appendicitis and go into emergency surgery, the appendix pretty much just sits there.
- Male nipples. Male nipples play no functional role in the body. Unlike other vestigial features, the reason for the existence of male nipples originates in the womb. Males and females share many genetic correlations. Since the nipple plays an important role in females and not in males, they likely remain because of a lack of selection.
- Coccyx. The leftover portion of early humans’ tails, the coccyx or tailbone starts out very tail-like in the womb. Over time, the “tail” fuses with the lower spine and becomes the tailbone. Some babies do feature small tails that doctors may remove through surgery.
- Auricular muscles. Many structures of the ear play an important role in hearing, but the visible muscles of the ear do not. We can’t move them to better capture sounds as monkeys and dogs do, but our ancestors may have.
Functional Body Parts You Can Live Without
In addition to vestigial body parts, humans can live without several features. Life may change slightly as a result of their loss, and ideally we’d keep all these parts, but they do not sustain life:
- Double organs. Humans have two lungs and two kidneys, but they can survive with only one of either of these organs.
- Extremities. You may not move as well or function the same, but you do not need any of your limbs to survive. Amputees survive without arms and legs.
- Reproductive organs. Many women voluntarily remove their uterus during a hysterectomy to prevent serious illnesses, such as cancer. They may also voluntarily remove their breasts to prevent or treat cancer.
- Parts of the digestive tract. Surgeons can remove parts of the digestive tract without hindering normal functionality. During a total gastrectomy, a surgeon removes the entire stomach and connects the small intestine directly to the esophagus. Those with colon cancer may undergo a complete removal and use a colostomy outside of the body to collect waste.
- Eyes. Like losing hearing or another sense, losing eyesight impacts quality of life. However, humans do not need their eyes to live.
While we can survive without some organs, some would need replacement to assure survival. For example, you cannot survive without a working heart. If a pacemaker will not prolong the use of a heart, a patient must receive a heart transplant to survive.
Physicians have workarounds for most organs and body parts, but they cannot do anything if the brain dies. You can live with a partly damaged brain, but the brain controls every process in the body. Severing the spinal cord in certain areas or losing electrical impulses in the brain is fatal.
The human body is amazingly adaptable. While you can live without many body parts, losing vestigial body parts causes minimal impact on daily life. After serious accidents, illnesses, and complications, surgeons can eliminate problem areas and give people the opportunity to move past a tragedy.