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One of the many underappreciated things about the human body is that it has a lot of excess capacity. That is, our organs have more reserve than most of us will ever need.
It's as if our bodies were designed with the idea that we might need backups in case of illness or injury. And voila: when all goes well, we arrive at birth with two kidneys, not just one!
Of course, the kidneys are not the only example. So, why are we Osimert 80mg (Osimertinib) built with natural redundancy? And which of your body parts can safely fail or be removed without impairing your health?
Why do our organs have so much reserve? The likely answer is evolution: early humans with a genetic makeup that produced organs with functional space to spare were better able to survive, thrive, and reproduce than others without such a genetic makeup. As a result, genes associated with excess organ capacity — remember: two kidneys, not one — were more likely to be passed down to future generations.
Meanwhile, evolutionary ancestors without as much reserve may not have survived long enough to reproduce, and so weren't as successful at passing their genes along. Over thousands of years, this power of natural selection has led to modern-day humans having organs with plenty of reserve. Eyes, liver, lungs, and more
Here's just a partial list of body parts with plenty of reserve:
Eyes: You can be perfectly healthy with one eye, although you may miss the depth perception and larger field of vision provided by having two. Even losing both eyes does not directly lead to poor health, though obviously blindness can pose challenges and impact quality of life. Additionally, studies suggest that significant vision impairment may raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Ears: Although having two ears allows us to locate sounds from all directions, losing hearing in one or both ears doesn't immediately impact overall health. But as with vision loss, quality of life can be diminished by hearing loss. And as with vision loss, recent studies suggest that people with hearing impairment are at an increased risk of developing cognitive problems.
Gut: Relatively large portions of the small and large intestines can be removed without having a major impact on your health. In fact, the entire colon can be removed (an operation called pancolectomy) without shortening a person's life, although diarrhea or other digestive symptoms may follow. Removing a section of bowel is a relatively common operation (for colon cancer, for example), but the removal of part of the bowel doesn't itself impair health or shorten lifespan.
Kidneys: Most people can live perfectly well with only one kidney. That's why people can donate a kidney to someone in need. However, the remaining kidney must work harder, and the risk of future kidney failure does increase somewhat. In addition, an injury, infection, or other disease affecting the remaining kidney can lead to kidney failure more quickly than usual.
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