Ear Wax

Ear wax to me can be really annoying i have one ear that produces more than the other, i also had an operation on my left ear which has made the ear not sit as it should which means the wax builds up and makes my each damn itchy, so of course i wanted to find why we have ear eax. I knew we have wax to protect our ears from dust and such but that is as far as it went. There are two types of ear wax

• the wet type which is dominant and produced mainly by black and white people
  
• the dry type which is recessive produced by Asians and Native Americans

The thought is with the cerumen type being different has been tracked to a single base change
In addition to affecting cerumen type, this mutation also reduces sweat production. The researchers
conjecture that the reduction in sweat was beneficial to the ancestors of East Asians and Native
Americans who are thought to have lived in cold climates.


There are a few components of earwax the primary ones being shed of layers of skin, with
60% of the earwax consisting of keratin, 12–20% saturated and unsaturated long-chain fatty
acids, alcohols, squalene and 6–9% cholesterol.

The ear has its own way of cleaning which occurs as a result of the "conveyor belt" process of tissue migration, aided by jaw movement. Cells formed in the centre of the eardrum migrate outwards from a part of your ear called umbo (at a rate comparable to that of fingernail growth) to the walls of the ear canal, and move towards the entrance of the ear canal. The cerumen in the canal is also carried outwards, taking with it any dirt, dust, and particulate matter that may have gathered in the canal. Jaw movement assists this process by dislodging debris attached to the walls of the ear canal, increasing the likelihood of its expulsion.