
Maglev Heart Could Keep Cardiac Patients Alive - headalgorithm
https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/this-maglev-heart-could-keep-cardiac-patients-alive
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throwaway5752
A lot of the optimism in the discussion here is misguided. Late life heart
failure and COPD has systemic roots and a heart transplant will be an
expensive and painful way of living a diminished life for a short time (see
discussion on constant blood pressure/gastro bleeds and LVAD side effects). Be
active, keep your BMI low, and control your blood pressure. Prevention is by
far the best approach. It is great news for younger patients suffering heart
failure from infection damage, congenital defect, et al., though, particularly
given the disgraceful lack of organ donors. Make sure you are an organ donor.

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LinuxBender
There are other measures being developed in this area with stem cell
replacement therapy. A very common cause of late life heart failure is a
depletion of stem cells and the heart eventually can't replace its own cells.
There was an interview on Joe Rogan recently with a doctor that works in this
area [1] [2]

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL1fEEtLaA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL1fEEtLaA)

[2] - [https://www.cellmedicine.com/](https://www.cellmedicine.com/)

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throwaway5752
Joe Rogan gives plausible sounds cranks a platform and an imprimatur in the
interest of open mindedness. But he mixes it in with good sources of
information. It may be for you if you want to be exposed to controversial
ideas, but if you are not careful it will make you less informed on certain
topics. Saying depletion of stem cells causes age related infirmity is
basically a tautology, as is with telomere lengthening.

If this guy's ideas worked, he wouldn't be doing his work in Panama, hawking
supplements, and appearing on Joe Rogan. He'd be among the wealthiest persons
in the world. "Snake oil" works because you are selling a cure to desperate
people, and fear of mortality is almost universal.

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LinuxBender
He operates out of Panama because U.S. laws don't allow the full use of all
stem cell types yet. Stem cell therapy and CRISPR are going through various
legal challenges. I would expect more innovation to occur in parts of the E.U.
and Japan in these areas.

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rscho
No, he operates there because this is speculative research that is for now
without a clinical basis.

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rwz
This article is showcasing how far even the most bleeding edge technology from
recreating the functionality of basic human organs. Heart doesn't seem exactly
the most complex organ structurally wise, especially compared to things like
lungs, liver, or kidneys. But we can't even make a sustainable replacement for
it that wouldn't require 4 kilograms of external batteries that you'd need to
recharge multiple times a day.

I can't wait for the future where artificial organs and limbs not only match
the usability and functionality of the normal ones, but actually exceed it.

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xwdv
> I can't wait for the future where artificial organs and limbs not only match
> the usability and functionality of the normal ones, but actually exceed it.

Why? What exactly would you do with those capabilities? Sit at a desk job and
work 50 hours a week to make payments on your super organs and limbs?

You can already achieve great levels of performance with regular limbs and
organs, and most people don’t take advantage of that, so I don’t see what
artificial ones will add.

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SirHound
Probably just continue to enjoy my life

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sinuhe69
I read the article with great excitement and enthusiasm. The idea of contact-
less rotor and dynamic positioning is IMO brilliant. However when I read the
overview article on Wikipedia, my optimism was somewhat damped. Even the
"ancient" model Jarvik-5 could a help a calf survive for 286 days, so the 90
days bovine-testing does not say much. Other prototypes had achieved even
greater success in human trial but were later abandoned like the AbioCor
design. OHSU has developed a simple design with contact-less shuttling pump
similar to the concept of Bivacor but seem failed for clinical trial. Other
design like the Carmat, the Polish POLVAD or the Taiwanese Phoenix-7 seem very
promising too, but they obviously didn't make any breakthrough yet. AFAIK the
bio-compatibility and the stability of the artificial heart are the most
important factors. As auch, I think we're still years away when not decades
away from a real breakthrough in artificial heart.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart)

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inlined
This is huge, though I have practical concerns. With two five hour batteries,
how critical will degradation be? Are these custom batteries that become the
new insulin?

How does this conflate with respiratory failure, which usually leads to
cardiac failure? Will we presumedly need new EFR training to avoid frying this
with an AED?

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ars
> how critical will degradation be

The batteries are outside the body, so replacing them is not a big deal.

> Are these custom batteries that become the new insulin?

Surgery to implant this machine will probably be in the $1 million range, new
batteries are a rounding error on that.

> Will we presumedly need new EFR training to avoid frying this with an AED?

An AED looks for fibrillation before triggering, if it doesn't detect that it
won't fire. Same for a Dr. - they look for fibrillation, they don't just
randomly apply paddles like in the movies.

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eximius
$1 million exceeds most deductibles

Batteries might not a few years down the road.

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ars
> $1 million exceeds most deductibles

Most?? Most deductibles are under $5,500, you bet it exceeds it.

Did you mean policy limits? Those were made illegal recently (part of why
healthcare costs went up so much).

> Batteries might not a few years down the road.

Doesn't matter. Someone with this device will have so much medical monitoring
the cost of a battery won't be noticed. A battery will cost less than a single
Dr. visit probably.

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eximius
You misunderstand me. You'll be able to afford the heart because your
insurance will pay for it.

A few years from now, you might not be able to afford that new $5,000 battery
you need to RUN your heart.

> Someone with this device will have so much medical monitoring the cost of a
> battery won't be noticed. A battery will cost less than a single Dr. visit
> probably.

The same could be said about people with insulin pumps, yet we see financial
problems kill them.

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xmichael999
Good luck to the people working on this project, it sounds amazing!

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Someone
So, is this a solution where patients who get this implanted won’t have a
heartbeat?

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wbl
Dick Cheny is doing just fine without one.

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aladoc99
He rejoined the pulse-bearing mass of humanity when he received a heart
transplant in 2012.

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49para
"Patients will wear a 4-kg external controller pack that contains two
rechargeable batteries (providing about 5 hours of operation each), although
they can also plug in directly to a power outlet."

This seems like a potential issue.

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foxyv
Usually these artificial hearts are to keep a person alive long enough for a
donor to become available. Not a problem if they have to lug a battery around
for a few months since it's not permanent.

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49para
Seems like a lot of trauma to have multiple open heart surgeries.

Seems like something like a portable ECMO (not sure if that exists) would be
less invasive

(ECMO is for oxigination which probably would be overkill in this situation)

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rscho
No, ECMO is a big machine. And is extremely invasive.

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goldenkey
My wonder is why it shouldn't be powered by the sugar in the blood just like
every other organ. That's where a real miracle will lie. I understand issues
with coagulation on silicon parts.

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SketchySeaBeast
I think you're right - that would be a miracle. I don't think we have the tech
right now to use the sugar in such a way.

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ars
Wouldn't it be easier to use ATP instead of Sugar?

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jxcl
You would need somewhere to generate the ATP. ATP doesn't flow around in our
blood, but is generated inside cells for their own use.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain)

