SPARE BODY PARTS

The organs you can live without

This week: 10 ft of intestine

THE intestines are a long, continuous tube that comprises the small bowel (about 20 ft long and 1 in in diameter) and the large bowel (about 5 ft long and 3 in in diameter).

The small bowel is where most of the nutrients from our food are absorbed, while the large bowel is responsible for absorbing water, yet we could manage without large chunks of either. People with ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease often have 8 ft to 10 ft of bowel removed because it has become inflamed and irreversibly damaged. ‘We could all survive pretty well without any of our large bowel,’ says Dr Andrew Goddard, spokesman for the Royal College of Physicians and a consultant physician at the Royal Derby Hospital. ‘But we need at least 3 ft to 4 ft of small bowel or we’d not be able to absorb enough nutrients from food to survive.’