By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
Each year in the United States surgeons remove the tonsils of more than half a million children. It is now one of the most common operations done on young children. For decades, the operation was called minor and harmless. No longer.
Charles Darwin popularized the concept of “rudimentary organs” (now called vestigial organs), a list which was expanded by German anatomist Robert Wiedersheim.
In 1895 Wiedersheim published his list of over 100 human body parts that he deemed functionless, including the tonsils and adenoids.
Unfortunately, this Darwinian belief was one reason why the use of most of these organs was not explored because “evolution has proven that they have no function.”
In time, evidence for their use piled up and now every one of these “useless organs” was found to have a function, and some had critical functions.
Biology books since Darwin called the tonsils and adenoids rudimentary organs. When I was about six, I visited the doctor for a bad cold. The doctor recommended the tonsil and adenoid removal. It appeared to me, even at age six, that every part of my body had a use, so I asked the doctor what they did.
He exclaimed, “They have no use and just cause problems later, so it is best to remove them when you are young and healthy.” So they were removed to avoid problems when I was older. What a mistake that turned out to be.
A recent medical study followed more than a million children for years. They documented that the two little lumps at the back of your throat had a critically important job. Your tonsils and the adenoid behind your nose sit at the exact spot where the outside world enters your body.
Every breath, every bite and every germ must pass over this tissue to get into the body. This fact is not an accident of anatomy, but was by design.
The tonsils are lymphatic tissue that is part of your immune system functioning as scouts, sampling what comes into the body and maturing the body’s immune system, teaching your defense system what to fight and what to ignore.
For this reason, tonsils are largest in young children to train the immune system. They shrink as you grow and the immune system is matured, and nearly disappear by adulthood. Ironically, doctors took this fact as proof that they are not useful.
In fact, the opposite is true. They are the largest when the immune system is being programmed because that is when the training occurs. Removing them as children, like the doctor did to me, is like removing a teacher from the classroom in first grade, forcing the students to struggle in the rest of their grades.
The tonsils become swollen because their lymph fluid is filled with viruses, germs and immune cells killing these pathogens. And large, painful tonsils mean that the immune soldiers are doing their job. If a child is gasping and stops breathing while sleeping, a tonsillectomy can bring relief.
If a child is miserable, removing them often helps. The question is, for how long? Studies comparing children who had the surgery with those who did not conclude surgery benefits were real and immediate.
Fewer throat infections within the first year. Removing the first defense against pathogens forces the body’s internal defenses to fight them. This may be why after the first year the advantages disappeared. We often trade a problem your child would likely have outgrown for a permanent change to their body.
A JAMA Otolaryngology study followed more than a million Danish children for up to 30 years. The children who had their tonsils removed as adults had nearly three times the risk of upper respiratory diseases.
Children who had their adenoids removed had double the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In short, the long-term increase in disease risk exceeded the short-term benefits of surgery.
The data are relative risks across huge populations. Those who had surgery in childhood had a higher risk of developing a related disorder.
A Swedish study analyzed nearly a million siblings raised in the same house where one had a surgery and the other one did not. This study cancels out genetics and the environment.
Children who had their tonsils or adenoids removed carried a modestly higher risk of breast, prostate and thyroid cancer over the following decades.
The children missing the tonsil/adenoid tissue got co-infection/cross-infection at nearly twice the rate and were more than four times as likely to become symptomatic.
One of the clearest changes after a tonsillectomy is a drop in IgA, immunoglobulin A, the antibody that coats your airway surface. IgA is the first defense against viruses and bacteria that you breathe in.
The decrease in IgA levels after surgery can persist for years. The tonsils also pump out natural antimicrobial compounds, your body’s built-in disinfectants, causing rapid immunity. A tonsillectomy lowers surface antibodies and mutes the alarm system that can affect you for the rest of your life.
The root cause of chronic tonsillitis is a weakened defense system, therefore you should ask, “What has weakened your immune system?” Is it lack of sleep or exercise?
Or poor diet consisting of high-sugar foods, especially soda and energy drinks? Adding foods that strengthen your immune system and lymphatic drainage is important.
Conclusions
A very useful organ was removed from tens of millions of children as a result of evolution’s influence. Only decades later scientists found out that it was far more important than once thought.
What’s ironic is that every time evolutionists labeled a body part as useless, scientists eventually found out that evolutionists were wrong. The tonsils were created by God for many very good reasons and are a gift, not a mistake.
Given this fact, in the end you and your doctor must be the ones to make this decision because each situation involves different elements.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. He has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at jbergman1946@gmail.com Bergman’s website is: https://crev.info/author/jbergman/