The news that researchers at the University of Maryland in the US have begun testing the process of “freezing” living people to cure diseases could open a new direction in helping humans to hibernate like bears.
According to the Daily Mail, over the years, world medicine has made many strides, especially in transplant operations, opening up many new treatment directions.
Large creatures like bears know how to hibernate.
Most recently, a team at the University of Maryland in the US has succeeded in “freezing” patients in a state of death.
The patient was brought to the hospital in a state of cardiac arrest, acute blood loss, possibly due to a bullet or stab wound.
At a body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, doctors have only 5 minutes to save the patient’s cardiac arrest. But in the study, the experts lowered the patient’s temperature to 10-15 degrees Celsius, drew the patient’s blood and replaced it with a cold salt mixture. This causes chemical reactions in the cells and brain activity to almost completely stop.
Doctors will then have about 2 hours to treat the wounds before pumping blood and getting the patient’s heart to beat again.
In fact, there are cases where both children and adults are diagnosed to have been dead for hours, but in fact they are still alive, because their body temperature drops to a significant extent.
“Freezing” could be a breakthrough method to help people cure diseases.
In 1999, Anna Bagenholm was skiing in Norway when she crashed, trapped under the ice. After 40 minutes, Anna’s heart stopped beating. Friends were lucky to save her, but it took 90 minutes for the helicopter to arrive.
By the time she was hospitalized, Anna’s heart had stopped beating for 2 hours, but thanks to being immersed in ice, Anna’s internal organs were not damaged. 5 hours later, Anna underwent defrosting, her body started to warm again, her heart beat normally. She eventually made a full recovery and was able to continue working.
Physics professor Marco Durante believes that the method of “freezing” living people that researchers are pursuing can also work to cure cancer. That’s because the patient in this state can receive many times more radiation than the undamaged cells.
“The patient regained consciousness and the disease was treated. It’s a dream scenario,” Durante said.
The pygmy lemur that lives only in Madagascar, the closest relative of humans genetically, is known to be able to hibernate, lasting for 8 months. The normal heart rate of this ape is 180 beats/min but can go as low as 4 beats/min. Body temperature from 36 degrees Celsius to 5 degrees Celsius.
Hibernation opens up a new way for humans to travel to space.
“Technically, they’re dead,” said Sheena Faherty, a biologist at Duke University in North Carolina, USA. This ape species has a genome similar to humans up to 97%, so Sheena hypothesized that “one day humans will also be able to hibernate, thanks to genetic intervention”.
“The bear is a typical animal that has overcome all the challenges that humans face to be able to hibernate. Understanding the bear hibernation mechanism can help humans make new breakthroughs,” said Maria Berg von Linde from the University of Orebro, Sweden.
Learning the secret of hibernation could open up new ways for people to preserve internal organs until they resurrect, even open up a way for people to travel to distant places in the universe. pillar.
NASA scientists are now seriously studying this possibility. Astronauts can enter a state of hibernation to save life until they reach their destination.