Amid the frantic finish to last year a couple of scientists quietly published research confirming they had discovered a new human organ!
It’s called the mesentery — which means “in the middle of the intestines” — and is found in the digestive system.
The mesentery was previously believed to be made up of many separate parts, but the new research published in The Lancet shows it is actually one, continuous structure — i.e. an organ:
Image | The Lancet
The scientists were able to confirm the find using complex microscopy.
“We are now saying we have an organ in the body which hasn’t been acknowledged as such to date,” Professor Coffey from the Uni of Limerick said in a statement.
But interestingly, we’re still not exactly sure what it does.
“Now we have established anatomy and the structure. The next step is the function,” Prof Coffey said.
“If you understand the function you can identify abnormal function, and then you have disease. Put them all together and you have the field of mesenteric science…the basis for a whole new area of science,” he said.
It’s hoped this new area will soon be able to sit alongside other established fields like gastroenterology, neurology, etc.
The breakthrough has even forced an update to the latest edition of the famous Gray’s Anatomy medical textbook.
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