system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why have appendicitis/appendectomies seem to have gone down dramatically over the past decade or so?

My wife and I were talking, and realized we haven't heard of anyone having an appendectomy in many years.

We googled it and it appears that stats online agreed. Cases for appendicitis have declined sharply over the past 10 years in the US.

Although, google didn't offer any cause to this.

When we were younger, we used to hear about people having appendicitis all the time. Now, not at all.

What's happened? What's changed?
gpt
For a long time, appendectomies were the preferred treatment options for appendicitis because scientists thought that the appendice was a vestigial organ and thus removing it would prevent any further inflammation without causing any damage to the patient.

It was discovered a decade ago that the appendix is in fact useful as a reserve of good bacteria for the gut. Since then, first intention treatment is a high dose of antibiotics and appendectomies are only done on recurrence.