

Injectable oxygen keeps people alive without breathing - TeMPOraL
http://techandfacts.com/injectable-oxygen/

======
keithflower
Oxygenation is only part of the problem, so I'm a little wary of the title
"Injectable oxygen _keeps people alive_ without breathing" [emphasis added].

EDIT: The actual paper's [2] title and abstract reads " _Boosting_ Oxygenation
During Acute Respiratory Failure - A new microparticle-based oxygen-delivery
technology has been developed for _short-term resuscitation_ of pulmonary
function" [emphasis added].

The real problem is ultimately _ventilation_ , or gas exchange at the alveoli.
When it's impaired, both oxygenation and removal of carbon dioxide are
affected. One result is respiratory acidosis. There is some literature[1]
indicating the body can tolerate such acidosis better in the absence of
hypoxemia so the cited idea may have merit as a stopgap measure, but I'm not
sure how effective this scheme would be in near or complete _absence_ of
ventilation - like the example cited where the little girl's lungs are full of
blood.

[1] - Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Adjuncts to Lung-Protective
Ventilation;
[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410886_2](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410886_2)

[2] -
[http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140fs21.abstract?sid...](http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140fs21.abstract?sid=129ecfae-12f1-4fc4-8b72-2e0395799de2)

~~~
carbocation
The bigger problem is oxygenation, at least in the short term. You can worry
about ventilation later.

Lack of oxygen delivery from the blood will kill the brain sooner than the
acidosis. Specifically, if this substance actually existed in a working form
usable by humans, I could imagine its frequent use in pulseless electrical
activity arrest. In PEA arrest, you fix the arrest by fixing the underlying
problem; hypoxemia is one of the catch-all problems, and such a technology
could permit you to intervene on hypoxemia even before you get airway control.

~~~
keithflower
Yeah, big cause of PEA is hypoxia - delivery of this substance _directly_ to
an end organ's (brain) vasculature reliably and quickly (albeit in the absence
of efficient _circulation_ ) is an interesting thought.

------
tokenadult
A research article about work by the same researcher:

[http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140ra88](http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/140/140ra88)

There have been several submissions of articles to Hacker News based on press
releases from that researcher's lab that go far beyond the firm research
findings here. This is preliminary research. Peter Norvig, director of
research at Google, reminds readers of press releases about scientific
research what to look for in his online essay, "Warning Signs in Experimental
Design and Interpretation."

[http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html](http://norvig.com/experiment-
design.html)

The preliminary experimental findings here are a LONG way from showing that
human beings can breathe underwater to do work underwater without scuba
apparatus, or that patients with severely damaged lung tissue can recover from
that life-threatening condition.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Such a wet blanket you are! :-) Ok so the actual research doesn't live up to
the press release, I for one wasn't particularly surprised by that.

I was pleasantly surprised though that they managed to get cell/oxygen
transfer in bodily fluids without hemoglobin. One of the challenges of
heart/lung machines is the variability of the oxygen absorption leading to
variable oxygen levels during a procedure that have post operative effects. So
if its even possible to replace the current oxygenation in a heart/lung
machine with an injector/cleaner of oxygen laced nano-particles it seems
plausible it would improve outcomes.

We will ignore for the moment that a "bad guy" would love to mix up a Malatov
cocktail with a shot of this stuff for a bit more punch.

If this stuff was shelf stable one could imagine and AED that would be even
better than the current setup, both keeping oxygen levels within spec and
shocking the heart when needed, of course we still need to work on robo-
insertion of IV needles [1].

[1] [https://www.stanford.edu/group/sailsbury_robotx/cgi-
bin/sali...](https://www.stanford.edu/group/sailsbury_robotx/cgi-
bin/salisbury_lab/?page_id=265)

------
Camillo
> “Some of the most convincing experiments were the early ones,” Dr. Kheir
> said. “We drew each other’s blood, mixed it in a test tube with the
> microparticles, and watched blue blood turn immediately red, right before
> our eyes.”

That sounds very unconvincing to me, considering that actual human blood is
never blue, not even when deoxygenated.

~~~
asksol
Blood from arteries are light red, while blood from veins is dark red. I don't
know, but could not 'blue blood' be a term used for deoxygenated blood?

~~~
dhughes
Or just someone without medical training going by what they see, I mean I look
at my veins in my arms and they look blue but I have no idea why that is.

~~~
jeroen94704
That's just an optical effect caused by the fact that the veins are (normally
at least) underneath the skin. Even oxygen poor blood is not blue.

~~~
dhughes
Yeah I figured something like that.

I found this very detailed explanation, in a nutshell skin scatters light.
[https://www.imt.liu.se/edu/courses/TBMT36/pdf/blue.pdf](https://www.imt.liu.se/edu/courses/TBMT36/pdf/blue.pdf)

And this list of animals with actual blue blood, when its healthy and
oxygenated not de-oxygenated: [http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/10-animals-that-
bleed-blue](http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/10-animals-that-bleed-blue)

------
joshuaheard
This technology will never allow you to "breathe". Breathing does two things,
it adds oxygen and removes CO2. The human body requires about a liter of
oxygen every 3 minutes. I don't know how big their syringe is, but I doubt
they can inject this much. Also, they provide no mechanism for carbon dioxide
removal. After a while, the carbon dioxide buildup in the body would become
toxic. At most, they could keep a sedated patient fully oxygenated for about
10 minutes. Potentially useful in a medical emergency, but that's about it.

------
wallflower
If you haven't heard it before, the Rule of 3 Survival usually applies.

3 minutes without air

3 hours without shelter (extreme conditions, hot or cold)

3 days without water

3 weeks without food

However, there have been documented cases of extraordinary human survival.

"Swedish Man Survives Two Months Inside Snow-Covered Car"

[http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/21/swedish-man-survives-
two...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/21/swedish-man-survives-two-months-
inside-snow-covered-car/)

~~~
popopje
and documented doubts about those cases
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/9106...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/9106027/Swedish-
man-was-not-trapped-in-his-car.html)

~~~
wallflower
ok, a better example. The point remains that the body can do amazing things to
survive once it reaches the point of possibly no return.

"Cold comfort: hibernation helped man survive 24 days in wild"

[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/21/1166290678782.html](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/21/1166290678782.html)

~~~
popopje
while i don't have a handy link doubting this one, there's not actually any
proof that he really spent 24 days "hibernating"

------
nlh
_...who would be able to breathe underwater for 30 minutes at a time without
coming above for air._

This seems like a loose interpretation of "breathe". But leads to a question I
had -- assuming the injection described in the article works properly, what
would the result of inhaling water be? I can't imagine it's very comfortable,
but assuming the person's oxygen is handled by this injection, would the body
adjust?

~~~
DanBC
See also the film "The Abyss" in which a rat is submerged in an oxygenated
fluid, thus breathing the liquid. This technique is used for some military
diving.

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

~~~
lifeisstillgood
It's not used because the available oxygen density from the liquid is too low
- a rat might survive as its volume is smaller but I am not sure of any long
term research, or even anything other than a rat that might have held its
breath.

The abyss was making it up.

~~~
jwilliams
According to this NYT article[1] the rat was indeed submerged in the movie
(the scene wasn't faked). The article also states that it's been tested
successfully on numerous animals - and even one human (although apparently
they almost died in the process).

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/movies/film-the-abyss-a-
fo...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/movies/film-the-abyss-a-foray-into-
deep-waters.html)

------
T-A
A small step toward the real thing:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirocyte](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirocyte)

------
jacquesm
How do they remove the CO2?

~~~
dllthomas
They don't, is my understanding. Not healthy, but healthier than no oxygen, so
might be useful in some emergency situations.

------
TallGuyShort
It's saddening to see the potential uses go from saving a little girl's life
to "military, coverts teams, even oil rig crews".

------
sukaka
_Researchers took years to whittle it down to the right oxygen concentration
and size required to make it safe to inject. They used a sonicator that uses
sound waves to blend the oxygen and fats together._

the manufacturing process sounds so simple. However if it will one day be in
every hospital, these people will be millionaires with rights to the
invention.

~~~
claudius
That sounds about as simple as ‘Just write a kernel and a userland and then
use some glue to hold it together’. The relevant point here is the
‘size’/length of the oxygen-transporting molecules.

------
deegles
Could this be used to increase athletic performance?

Also, I'm wondering if there would be any negative effects from radically
increasing the amount of oxygen your blood can hold. On the other hand, it
would be like a superpower. I can imagine competitive free-divers using this
or a future version of this to do some really impressive diving!

------
scotth
I'm a little confused by the text. Can this be used to sustain someone
indefinitely without breathing?

~~~
KeliNorth
Nope. It gives the body/brain the O2 it needs to survive for a while, but CO2
will still build up, leading to:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_acidosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_acidosis)

Probably. So a life-saving measure in extreme circumstances, but certainly not
something you can use indefinitely.

------
mistercow
Sounds like a candidate to go right next to epipens in "stuff that we're crazy
for not putting in every first aid kit".

~~~
GhotiFish
We have wasps around our farm and a fair bit of traffic, I was seriously
seriously concerned about someone getting stung and going into anaphylactic
shock. I looked into getting some Epipens. They are over 100 bucks a pen, and
they don't have a long shelf life.

Turns out a more economical solution is Benadryl. Cheaper, you can smash it
up, pour it in water and force it down someones throat if they can't drink.

~~~
mistercow
Oh, yeah, the cost issue with EpiPens is a huge barrier. Getting a doctor to
prescribe you one when you don't have a documented life-threatening allergy is
another.

As far as I can tell, there's no fundamental reason for either of these
issues. Epinephrine doesn't seem to be particularly expensive to produce, so
my guess is that the auto-injectors are expensive simply because of the small
scale of the market.

As for doctor reluctance, I don't know what's going on there. Our doctor said
he didn't want to give us a prescription because he "didn't want us to use it
instead of calling an ambulance". Ridiculous. An ambulance would easily take
10 minutes to reach us. Without oxygen, that's enough time for irreversible
brain damage. (I'm also iffy on the wisdom of taking someone whose immune
system you've just suppressed into a breeding ground for drug-resistant
bacteria, but I digress).

Which brings me to one last thing: you cannot rely on benadryl as a solution
in cases of anaphylaxis. For one thing, the onset orally is a minimum of 15
minutes. That's time you simply do not have if someone's airway has closed.

Worse, there isn't really good evidence that benadryl is effective at treating
the symptoms of anaphylaxis in the first place. It is commonly used as an
adjunct to epinephrine. But this seems to be on a "hey, it can't hurt" basis,
given the lack of evidence.

For my part, $200/year (you should have two, in case the first is
insufficient) is well worth it.

~~~
GhotiFish
Thanks for the insight. I agree with your assessment. Though I think two pens
might be overkill, I'll definitely get one as a present.

------
coin
No pinchzoom on iPad. Why do sites like this go out of their way to disable
useful functionality.

