Please don’t try and sell your organs. You will end up in a bath of ice with a bad case of septicemia, and without your very necessary kidneys.

I say ‘necessary’, but are they? Technically, yes. Technically you could also survive without them, though, which is why they appear on Business Insider’s list of the body organs that you can live without.

The human body is a pretty spectacular machine. It contains more than 600 muscles, roughly 206 bones and thousands of tendons. The organs keep all of this together by making sure that your body functions properly.

Some organs are more important than others, though, which brings us to the list of organs that you could technically take or leave without too many consequences.

1. The gallbladder

The gallbladder is a small sac-shaped organ that stores and concentrates bile. It’s rather disgusting.

Although the presence of a gallbladder is key for optimizing digestion, you don’t actually need a one for your intestines to do their thing. And sometimes solid deposits of digestive fluid called gallstones can form in the gallbladder, which can cause people to feel a lot of discomfort.

You can live without it, but you just need to watch your diet and avoid high-fat foods.

2. Spleen

The spleen produces blood and defence cells in developing foetuses. If you’re reading this you’re probably not a developing foetus, which means that your spleen now spends its time storing blood platelets, making antibodies, and destroying abnormal cells in the blood.

Sure, you’re more likely to develop certain infections if you lost it, but for the most part, you wouldn’t notice if it was gone.

3. Appendix

No one is entirely sure why we needed an appendix in the first place. Apparently, they produce immunoglobulins, which are proteins that help the immune system fight infection.  There are other organs in the body that do this, though, so it’s more like that Instagrammer who is only capable of copying the posts of others (Kim K and Paris Hilton, I’m looking at you).

You can live happily without it, and many do.

4. Kidneys

Ah, the kidneys.

These are actually pretty vital to your survival. They play a critical role in filtering toxins out of the bloodstream and producing hormones to regulate blood pressure.

Modern medicine has given us dialysis, which substitutes the job of the kidneys by filtering out toxins and excess water from the body.

But let’s get real, you wouldn’t want to live like that unless you had to.

5. Lung

You’ll notice that I wrote ‘lung’, not ‘lungs’.

One lung is actualy enough to keep you breathing. Each individual lung is equipped with all the parts needed to function without the other.

Fun fact – Pope Francis has lived without one lung since he was a teenager.

If you have no lungs, you can’t breathe and you die. That should go without saying.

6. Reproductive organs

Look, if you don’t want kids, all that your reproductive organs (testicles, ovaries and uterus) do is regulate your sex hormones, like oestrogen and testosterone. Granted, this is kind of important, but you can live without them.

According to Mayo Clinic in people with female sex hormones, oestrogen helps maintain bone density, regulate hot flashes, and reduce vaginal dryness.By the same token, in people with male sex hormones, testosterone helps maintain bone strength, muscle tone, and hair growth, among other things.

There are, however, testosterone and oestrogen replacement therapies available for people who need them.

7. The colon

After your food makes the journey from the mouth to the oesophagus, stomach, and small intestine, it enters the colon where it becomes poo.

Again, modern medicine has made it possible to live without part, or even all of, your colon.

Generally, a surgeon will make an opening in the small intestine (called an ileostomy) and attach it to a bag outside the body, so the person can continue to remove waste without their colon.

Tada! The only difference is that nothing will ever come out of your butt again.

8. Stomach

You can still eat regular food without a stomach.

When a patient has a full gastrectomy (removal of their stomach) they connect esophagus directly to the small intestine. Since this shortens the length of the overall digestive path, most people who undergo the procedure usually have to make changes to their diet.

Honestly didn’t see this one coming. Who knew?

9. Tonsils

Okay, duh. We all knew this one. Moving on.

10. Thyroid

Advancements in medicine have made it possible for you to live without your thyroid. For those of you who don’t know what a thyroid is:

Nearly every other organ in the body depends on the thyroid (aka the butterfly-shaped neck gland) to function. The thyroid is responsible for producing hormones that regulate the body’s metabolism (or tell the cells how to use energy.)

So it’s pretty important, but you can live without it.

11. Eyes

Yup. You don’t need eyes to survive.

So there you have it. You’re carrying around a lot of stuff you don’t actually need. Still, that’s no reason for you to Marie Kondo your body.

[source:businessinsider]