Hope for human hibernation heats up

Hope for human hibernation heats up

cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com

Toien noted that bone loss and muscle loss is a problem right now for long-term spacefliers on the International Space Station. New medications, sparked by future research into hibernation, could retard the bone-loss process in space and on Earth.

"If our research could help by showing how to reduce metabolic rates and oxygen demands in human tissues, one could possibly save people," Toien said. "We simply need to learn how to turn things on and off to induce states that take advantage of the different levels of hibernation."

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
Science
inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com
www,mysteriouspeople.com
www.dailyindia.com
library.thinkquest.org

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
SCI/TECH: Human Hibernation On The Horizon
Man goes into Hibernation!
SCI/TECH: ESA Plans Astronaut Hibernation
New Hibernation Technique Might Work on Humans

We all face times when we wish we could crawl into our cave and hibernate. This, however, puts some new focus on a subject that has been fascinating scientists and non-scientists alike for thousands of years. In fact, through the years, there have been reports of humans going into hibernation to survive both traumatic events and hard times.

A hundred and ten years ago the British Medical Journal ran a short article titled Human Hibernation (link). The article, reprinted in 2000, is a peculiar account of how poor Russian peasants allegedly survive famine by sleeping for half of the year. (See Additional News Link for entire story.)

A Japanese man has survived for 24 days in cold weather and without food and water by falling into a state of "hibernation", his doctor has said. news.bbc.co.uk...

Yogis are famous for slowing down their physical bodily processes and going into hibernation-like states.

It has been claimed that many Eastern yogis, fakirs and shamans are known to be able to control physiological activities such as the heartbeat, body temperature, blood pressure and breathing, using mind power alone. [...] There are reports that the Egyptian Tahra Bey (c1925), could increase his pulse-rate to 140 beats a minute, or slow it down to 40, and sometimes even stop it completely.(See additional news link.)

Some liken the mental state of catatonia to hibernation, and hibernation-type techniques have been used since the 1970s to attempt to bring people out of catatonic states (source).

Physicians have been harnessing the power and characteristics of hibernation for human medical purposes for a while now, doing things like inducing comas to allow a body to heal, among other things (see additional news links).

Senior author Brian Barnes, a zoophysiologist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, said that lowering metabolic needs in humans could help extend the "golden hour" after an accident when medical treatment is most effective. "You could imagine a golden day or a golden week."

And they've had an eye on it for extended human space travel for a while now too.

Human hibernation was strictly the domain of science fiction movies such as 'Alien' and '2001: A Space Odyssey'. See additional news link for more.

Well it's not anymore.

Hibernation is really but one step away from cryogenic suspension, too, if you think about it. Ever wonder if this might not be part of the Doomsday plan too? We have a Doomsday Seed Bank. Why not a Doomsday Human Bank too?

Anyway, enjoy the news—and thinking about the possibilities.

I guess everyone's hibernating

I'm going to give this a bump, because it is damn interesting. Human ingenuity is astounding. I have to read the full length of the articles before I comment further.

I remember seeing on The Discovery Channel, I think it was on an episode of "Weird or What?", a story about a 13 month old child, who sneaked outside, at night, in -20c, in just a nappy. Her heart stopped beating for at least half an hour, and her body temperature went down to about 16c. The medics thought she was definitely dead, however, they managed to resuscitate her, and apparently, beside some frost-bite, she was pretty much fine. The fact that she didn't receive any lasting damage as a result of her heart stopping for 30mins+ astounded medics, and they thought that a hibernation type natural response was the explanation.

Here's one of the few links I could find for the story, seeing as it happened about a decade ago: www.cbc.ca...

Another case which seems to go along with the hibernation thing- Erika Nordby was the girl's name, and apparently her temperature reached 10f lower than the Japense guy you mentioned.

reply to post by TheOneElectric

Thank you.

reply to post by ScepticalBeliever

Wow...I'll have to look for that Discovery Channel show. Definitely would love to read more about the Russian peasants too.

NOVA: Human Hibernation (Medical researchers and ER doctors are testing therapies that cool down patients to save their lives. Aired January 26, 2011 on PBS) www.pbs.org...

They've been called medical miracles: People submerged in icy water, or buried in snow, with no breath or heartbeat. They seem dead, yet a fortunate few are revived—thanks to the cold. Now, across the country, ER doctors are intentionally chilling their patients into hypothermia; meanwhile, scientists are hoping that a cocktail of drugs inspired by hibernating animals could one day perform the same "miracles" on demand.

There's also another NOVA documentary on suspended animation (transcript here.)

reply to post by ScepticalBeliever

Finally had a chance to look. I think this is it? Interesting about the distinction between clinical death and hybernation.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


That's the one, yep- good find. I forgot the conclusion they came to, seeing as I watched it quite a few months ago, so I suppose, in reality, her case is not directly related. Nevertheless, it was still an interesting case, and goes along with the underlying theme of the hibernation theory, in that we humans can survive pretty crazy extremes. For a medical layman like myself, the superficial similarites were too great- apologies. I've re-learnt something today!

reply to post by ScepticalBeliever

All of these tangentially related topics are fascinating. I just watched a video and read some threads here on cryogenic suspension. Yikes.