Talk:Large intestine

Gut microbiome coverage

Hello. I had added text on the gut microbiome as part of the descending colon, and also introduced the term "distal gut" which is not found elsewhere in this article, and also added some more thoughts on the gut microbiome, such as that it has been called the "forgotten organ" because of the recent emergence of more science on it. These edits were removed by Iztwoz, and i do understand that there is a section on "Bacterial flora" -- but i would like to still have the term "distal gut" present and i would like to reference the gut microbiome specifically in the section on the descending colon, as that is where it's located. Could we figure out a way to compromise, and to improve the article's quality and comprehensiveness, instead of just deleting my edit that i worked on? I suggest that we could have a small amount of text in the descending colon section to give the alternate term "distal gut" and to link to the subsection currently called "bacterial flora" -- and there in that section, i would add some of what i had added previously to the descending colon section. Another point, the gut microbiome is not just bacterial flora. There are mycotic and archaea members as well. Is it ok to change that subsection to be called "gut microbiota" or "gut microbiome" and to reference these other members of the gut flora as well? Thanks for the consideration. SageRad (talk) 17:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, i did edit it as per what i said above, and so far it's stayed so i hope you like it, or discuss it further. Thanks people. SageRad (talk) 14:34, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your good faith edits to the article, SageRad. I agree with Iztwoz we should try and use the anatomical terms rather than the ambiguous proximal/distal where possible, but you are editing in good faith and haven't changed its general structure. How about "Gut flora" as a title? Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:24, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, LT910001. I did use "gut flora" as a sub-heading and i added the mention of other microbes like fungi and archaea who are in the gut microbiome. I did mention the term "distal gut" which i have seen in many scientific research articles, but i did not make it central, just a mention of that and of gut flora in the section on descending colon. SageRad (talk) 11:31, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Merged

The colon and large intestine pages definitely should not be merged as the large intestine is composed of the colon and the cecum, not just the colon. It would be acceptable to make the colon article part of the large intestine article, but certainly not the other way around. 204.60.103.130 (talk) 23:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This article was merged into Colon (anatomy) as the two articles had substantially similar content, and the other wasn't a stub. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 18:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Unmerged. The colon is a part of the large intestine; the terms are not synonyms. Of course, I would be happy to hear what other people think about the issue. Perhaps some of the content at colon should be brought here. --Arcadian 18:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Should be merged in my opinion. For all practical purposes, colon = large intestine -- Samir धर्म 18:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Please also read c_47/12249855 at Dorland's Medical Dictionary, which explicitly acknowledges that as a common but incorrect assumption. --Arcadian 19:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I realize that :) Doesn't mean we need two separate articles on colon and large intestine. Practically speaking, the cecum and colon have the same histology, function and pathology (other than typhlitis). The anatomical definitions are, well, archaic, and based on what is retroperitoneal and what is not. I suggest large intestine as the main article (describing the anatomical definitions) with colon as a redirect to the same. -- Samir धर्म 19:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

In retrospect it works better as is with large intestine as an umbrella article for cecum, colon, rectum and anal canal. Forget all that I said... -- Samir धर्म 19:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

We also had Large Intestine (note caps) as an existing redirect to Colon (anatomy) - this is rather inconsistant having the two, theres a lot of overlap here, and we really shouldn't have the same or largely the same information on two different articles. Even if we keep seperate articles, the overlap needs to be resolved one way or another. Merging seems like the quickest fix here, but other solutions may be able to be found. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 00:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose merging "large intestine" into "colon", because colon is only part of the large intestine, and not otherwise. Merging "colon" article into "large intestine" might be acceptable, but I would prefer having them as two different articles. --Maxxicum 13:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I advise to not merge the two articles, but have two seperate article with simply the same information. T his makes it easier to use, because unless you adapt the algorithem, whenever someone serches for 'colon' nothing will come up. they will be forced to search for 'large intestine' or vice versa depending on what you call the merged article. Its just more practical. -smartcookie2u 18:31, December 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.83.137.7 (talk • contribs) 23:29, 6 December 2007

In common usage people consider the colon to be equivalent to the large intestine. Colonoscopy is called that, rather than rectocolocecoscopy as an analagy to esophagogastroduodenoscopy. There is reason to look at the rectum as separate given the blood supply and management of malignancy in the rectum, but the distinction of cecum from the colon is an issue that anatomists seem to still care about, wheras clinicians see the human cecum as part of the colon. For example, we have our colorectal surgeon colleagues who I generally call for resection of cecal ca's, and never once has such a surgeon begged off on the consult because it was outside of his region of expertise. The best arrangement would be to have an article on Large Intestine with subsections devoted to the rectum and colon. Colon to be subdivided into cecum, ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid. Reference to the cecum as a separate organ would be mentioned in terms of anatomic correctness and with reference to the cecum having specialized function in non-human species. A redirect from colon to Large intestine would meet the needs for users looking up colon vs large intestine. Arcadian could then fully expound on the differing vasular and lympahtic drainage of all the subsections. Stephen Holland, M.D. Kd4ttc (talk) 03:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Reversions

1.5 m is NOT the length of 2 buses. Please do not add illogical things to Wikipedia. -- Ouishoebean / ^(talk) _{(Humour =))} 16:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Rectum

Why isn't rectum included here? 168.224.1.14 15:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Contradictory statements about appendix

I've flagged a statement about the appendix as needing cites (and probably correction). Here's the passage that needs fixing:

The vermiform appendix is attached to its posteromedial surface of the large intestine. It contains masses of lymphoid tissue. It is a part of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue which gives the appendix an important role in immunity. Appendicitis is the result of a blockage that traps infectious material in the lumen. The appendix can be removed with no damage or consequence to the patient.

Either the appendix has an important role in immunity, or it can be removed without consequence—it can't go both ways. For now I've just added a {citeneeded} tag and a proper wikilink to vermiform appendix, but someone with a bit more expertise than I can offer needs to work on this. From what I gather, there are certainly various hypotheses which suggest useful roles for the appendix, but no conclusive evidence for any. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:18, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Large Intestine

I think they should write information about the large intestine that is simpler so Primary 3 to Primary 6 who are learning it will read it easier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.2.128 (talk) 12:19, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Merge (March 2014)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The Colon (anatomy) and Large intestine articles have been merged and separated before. However, things have changed here since those arguments were made some time ago, circa 2006. Please see Wikipedia:Merging#Reasons_for_merger for more information. I only saw one (invalid) argument against the merger, so I was at first surprised at why the merger didn't happen. I of course then noticed that the merger went the wrong direction. Large intestine into colon, rather than vice versa). I'm proposing merging the colon article into the large intestine article, which makes the most sense.

• The only argument against the merger that I read on the two talk pages was in regard to people not being able to find one article if they search for the other. I'm not sure where this came from as we can simply redirect colon and colon (anatomy) to a colon section of large intestine. Wikipedia is not a dictionary and does not require separate entries.
• The colon is the major, almost entire, part of the large intestine so the merger makes sense from that standpoint. Also, just glancing through the articles, I see a good amount of overlap. Overlap is not a good thing in this case as selective redundancy has its own issues. One thing to keep in mind when merging is that we have to avoid merging articles to make one long article. Nonetheless, the amount of overlap means the merged article will not be much longer than either are currently.
• The merger will make it easier for editors.
• More importantly, it's going to be easier for people searching WP to find what they're looking for.

As always, comments are welcome and requested, but please keep them constructive. I understand that colon and large intestine are not synonyms. Using other articles that are separated (but possibly should be merged) is not evidence that these should remain separated. And most importantly, this is not a personal attack on anyone, so please don't feel the need to attack anyone here. The goal for all of us should be to make a great article that doesn't confuse readers. Thank you, The Haz _talk 19:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Support Agree. This content can easily be portrayed in a single article, which would likely have enhanced quality. It's also unfair to readers to fragment this information. Agree with your statements completely. --LT910001 (talk) 11:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Support Merging the two articles together would make it easier for users to find information about this organ. The large intestine page also needs some cleanup, as it is confusing to readers that it is called the "colon", and yet it contains the colon, among other structures. And even though the article states that the "large intestine includes the cecum, colon, rectum, and anal canal," only the cecum and colon are included in the "Structure" subsection. --Iamozy (talk) 23:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I have performed this merge. --LT910001 (talk) 03:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Ping to Hazmat2 and Iamozy. I have performed the merge and now might be a good opportunity for a flurry of editing, especially copyedits and sourcing. Some sections (Function) may need to be more organised and other sections (eg Clinical significance) expanded with some more information on the major conditions and colonoscopy. With the merge this would make this one of the 100 most-viewed Anatomy articles on Wikipedia. An example anatomy article of GA status is here: Recurrent laryngeal nerve, and some guidelines for structure are here: WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy. I hope one or both of you are interested, as I would happily collaborate on this! --LT910001 (talk) 03:21, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In other animals?

The section title "In other animals" highlights a problem with everything that precedes it: no indication at each point the set of animals to which each assertion applies. In the case of the presentation of the length of the large intestine, I felt that the writer must have specifically had humans in mind, so I indicated as much, but I'm betting that various contributors have had different scopes in mind and that everything before the "in other animals" section is a hodgepodge of facts applicable to varying subsets of Vertebrata. Can someone knowledgeable run through the text and make explicit the scope of each of the statements that are made? —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:22, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see anything that doesn't apply to humans before that section. I think it's appropriate to make each section of the beginning as subsections of "In humans". Of course, if you think of a better way, please don't be afraid to edit the article. Be bold! The Haz _talk 17:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy. The majority of our readers will be seeking information on human anatomy. The benefits of having a standard layout for articles is that it helps format content, it offers a more professional appearance, simplifies editing (no need to have a unique layout for each article), offers a path to completeness, and easily facilitates wiki-links to subsections. It also simplifies editing by localising the content relating to animals, which mean that editors do not have to find comparative anatomy sources to make any assertions about structure. There is a section titled "in other animals" so it may be assumed that the remainder of the content relates to humans. This layout has been applied to over 500 articles. --LT910001 (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

And yet here I am, an ordinary user, who came to the article without having ever seen documentation on the standard layout, and it wasn't clear to me, especially since in one place the first part of the article referred to "vertebrates", which probably didn't help me imagine that I was supposed to be understanding the content surrounding it specifically in the human context.

This leads me to suggest that the guideline should be revised to specify that the part of these articles that is specific to humans be titled "In humans". That will make life easier not only for readers, but for contributors who don't happen to know about the guideline, helping reduce the number of cases where someone who does know the guidelines has to come in and revert or move someone's contribution. —Largo Plazo (talk) 22:29, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your commentary. I don't think that the current structure is that confusing, the lead makes mention of both vertebrates and humans, and there is a section titled "other animals" which would seem to indicate where information about other animals can be found. We need to strike a balance between animal anatomy (which exists) and human anatomy (for which, in the majority of cases, the vast amount of information and edits exist - in particular about function and clinical significance). I've moved the 'other animals' section to the 'structure' section for clarity. What do you think now? We have recently started to localise information about animals in 'other animals' sections. More-or-less, before this guideline was implemented, the 4500 anatomy articles here were each individually stylised, which had led to a significant duplication of content and, in many cases, a structure that was quite unreadable (or didn't exist at all). How about post a message at WP:ANATOMY where we can discuss this further? With any luck we can craft a better solution and perhaps amend the guideline, as I do recognise that this situation may not be optimal for all articles. --LT910001 (talk) 01:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Proximal and Distal

I liked the edit by the unnamed user that added the link to "proximal". I added a similar link for "distal" and i changed the terms to "proximal gut" instead of "proximal colon" because the former seems to have about 10 times as much usage as the latter. I hope you like these changes. SageRad (talk) 13:34, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Absorption of Vitamin B12 in the large intestine?

I thought even though some bacteria in the large intestine produce Vitamin B12, it is not absorbed in there. Cf. Armstron 1968, Schjønsby 1989. Thus, even though humans can produce some Vitamin B12, we cannot absorb it (it is absorbted the small intestine), so we must have all it from food. Should the mention in the text be corrected? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.169.69 (talk) 10:25, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Confusion

There is a mix of terms on the page which is not very clear - calling the large intestine the colon etc. I assume the result of prev merge. Shall look at them sometime unless someone else can fix. --Iztwoz (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

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How and when is chyme moved?

This article does not say how and when chyme is moved or propelled through the large intestine.

The Peristalsis#Large intestine section does not have any citations but claims:

Although the large intestine has peristalsis of the type that the small intestine uses, it is not the primary propulsion. Instead, general contractions called mass movements occur one to three times per day in the large intestine, propelling the chyme toward the rectum. Mass movements often tend to be triggered by meals, as the presence of chyme in the stomach and duodenum prompts them.

This article from lumenlearning, an educational vendor, mentions three mechanisms for moving chyme.

• Haustral contractions - while we have an article on Haustrum (anatomy) it does not provide sources we could use when writing about haustral contractions. Are haustra found throughout the entire large intestine?
• Peristalsis - the Peristalsis#Large intestine section says that peristalsis plays a small part in the movement of chyme through the large intestine. lumenlearning's version places peristalsis as the second most important movement mechanism.
• Mass movement - Lumenlearning uses this as a verb as in "The third type is a mass movement" and it also seems these are are only seen in the latter half of the colon, starting mid-way through the traverse colon. The implication is that our Peristalsis#Large intestine section needs to be updated to note this aspect to mass movements. Is a "mass movement" a single squeeze or is a peristalsis style wave affect?

Related to this is this article does not explain where where in the large intestine chyme becomes feces. It says feces is stored in the descending colon and so the conversion must be in the transverse colon or earlier. The Bolus (digestion) article implies the name is "chyme" until it's discharged and then is known as "feces." The feces and Human feces articles seem to support that though the lumenlearning article indicates the material is known as "feces" while it's still inside the large intestine and rectum.

Related to the topic of propulsion is defecation which the lumenlearning article says involves a contraction of both the sigmoid colon and rectum. Are these the same muscles used in mass movement? The defecation article offers a new phrase, "mass peristaltic movement," as a propulsion mechanism. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistent use of left and right

Two of the images i.e. here and here disagree in their use of left and right when referring to the ascending and descending colons. Surely the ascending colon is typically on the right hand side of the body, and the descending is on the left, regardless of the position of the observer or diagram. I followed the link below the first image and see that the CDC has removed the words left and right from their source copy of the image. 121.72.50.95 (talk) 03:26, 6 January 2022 (UTC)