How we Die

**NaptownKnight** · May 05, 2007, 09:26 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186...week/?GT1=9951

Very interesting article, I mean this discovery is huge if they can find a way to resume oxygen supply without them dying. Thoughts?

**Dunecat** · May 05, 2007, 10:20 AM

Wow, I guess this is groundbreaking. The ground is totally broken on this one.

**Cluny the Scourge** · May 05, 2007, 10:24 AM

Actually it's pretty dry and academic - meaningless in any practical sense. Flatline for that long and your brain will be so irreparably damaged it won't matter a damn how revolutionary are the techniques to get your internal organs functioning again - the 'you' will be scrambled. Death would be far preferable than such a grim fate. Death is the destroyer of worlds, and doesn't give a rat's ass what a bunch of doctors think of him. He is your master. You have no other.

**Carach** · May 05, 2007, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by Cluny the Scourge

Actually it's pretty dry and academic - meaningless in any practical sense. Flatline for that long and your brain will be so irreparably damaged it won't matter a damn how revolutionary are the techniques to get your internal organs functioning again - the 'you' will be scrambled. Death would be far preferable than such a grim fate. Death is the destroyer of worlds, and doesn't give a rat's ass what a bunch of doctors think of him. He is your master. You have no other.

sounds pretty interesting to me?

You sound like a religious guy to me.

**DisgruntledGoat** · May 05, 2007, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Cluny the Scourge

Actually it's pretty dry and academic - meaningless in any practical sense. Flatline for that long and your brain will be so irreparably damaged it won't matter a damn how revolutionary are the techniques to get your internal organs functioning again - the 'you' will be scrambled. Death would be far preferable than such a grim fate. Death is the destroyer of worlds, and doesn't give a rat's ass what a bunch of doctors think of him. He is your master. You have no other.

I don't know how far you got but the article discusses why (so long as the injury is a heart attack) that the brain won't be deprived of oxygen.

Patients were put on a heart-lung bypass machine to maintain circulation to the brain until the heart could be safely restarted. The study involved just 34 patients, but 80 percent of them were discharged from the hospital alive. In one study of traditional methods, the figure was about 15 percent.

So it isn't actually pointless. It seems that its leading to a higher percentage of heart attack patients surviving.

**LegionnaireX** · May 05, 2007, 10:07 PM

If people are gonna keep discovering ways to make people live longer than whoever is in charge of fixing the population problem needs to step it up. We need another space race so NASA will quit wasting $Billions on stupid telescopes and focus on a mars or moon colony. Doctors and scientists may believe that it is morally right to bring cures to the terminally ill, but if the population continues to grow unchecked it will be much worse for humanity and the world.

**NaptownKnight** · May 05, 2007, 10:40 AM

I'm pretty religious, but I know very well that us humans have advanced to a point where stuff like this is possible.

Also, it does say cells, meaning brain cells also. So if they find a way to circumvent the effects of the reintroduction of oxygen then it may be possible to revive people who have been clinically "dead" for an hour or too.

**Carach** · May 05, 2007, 10:46 AM

it still doesnt make people live forever though (which i personally think to be a bad thing)..

so they are near to killing off cancer, near to reviving people that have been dead for an hour or 2 from heart attacks and so forth - the common cold continues to elude us though !

petty things like the flu though are required in nature so we can build resistances... (a bit offtopic, as heartattacks are nothing like viruses and so on..) - just hope they dont go overboard on 'curing' things for that reason

**The Fish** · May 05, 2007, 11:51 AM

Reperfusion injury is complicated, more so than the article implies. It's not just oxygen that can cause cellular damage, but also the buildup of toxic metabolites as a result of anaerobic respiration (when the cells are starved of oxygen), as well as potentially toxic ions (especially calcium).

Calcium is a major regulatory ion in our cells; when it comes time for a cell to die, the mitochondria release it to trigger cell "suicide," or apoptosis. During ischemia (i.e. lack of blood flow), extracellular calcium tends to accumulate (the process is complicated and involves cytokine release from nearby leukocytes). When blood flow is restored, a buildup of calcium "upstream" of the blockage site suddenly flows to the previously starved cells (which were already building up calcium themselves). The result is a massive calcium load, which triggers apoptotic mechanisms (various lipid, protein, and nucleic acid-degrading proteins). The result is cell death. Managing reperfusion injury, then, is not simply a matter of oxygen, or controlling the mitochondria, but of controlling extracellular metabolites/ions, as well. I think the goals outlines in the article will take a while to be realized.

**caomhanach** · May 08, 2007, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by The Fish

Reperfusion injury is complicated, more so than the article implies. It's not just oxygen that can cause cellular damage, but also the buildup of toxic metabolites as a result of anaerobic respiration (when the cells are starved of oxygen), as well as potentially toxic ions (especially calcium).

Calcium is a major regulatory ion in our cells; when it comes time for a cell to die, the mitochondria release it to trigger cell "suicide," or apoptosis. During ischemia (i.e. lack of blood flow), extracellular calcium tends to accumulate (the process is complicated and involves cytokine release from nearby leukocytes). When blood flow is restored, a buildup of calcium "upstream" of the blockage site suddenly flows to the previously starved cells (which were already building up calcium themselves). The result is a massive calcium load, which triggers apoptotic mechanisms (various lipid, protein, and nucleic acid-degrading proteins). The result is cell death. Managing reperfusion injury, then, is not simply a matter of oxygen, or controlling the mitochondria, but of controlling extracellular metabolites/ions, as well. I think the goals outlines in the article will take a while to be realized.

**~~Ummon~~** · May 05, 2007, 11:53 AM

My personal opinion is that though cells don't die, the shock of any form of resuscitation (after a long interval) might have deep consequences on several intracell systems, thus later increasing the chance of developing other diseases.

What Fish says on reperfusion damage, is also correct. Although today antioxydants are used to reduce it, there are obviously progressive factors as time passes.

**NaptownKnight** · May 06, 2007, 04:33 PM

A tricky concept, no doubt. If theres anything Humans are good at, it's "population control", like wars or genocide.

**Diogenes_of_Sinope** · May 06, 2007, 08:36 PM

Yeah, let's start a science crusade against all religions and wipe out their followers, I'll start with my girlfriend (she fried my poor motherboard a week ago trying to 'help' me...

)

**~~removeduser_426582376423734~~** · May 07, 2007, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Diogenes_of_Sinope

Yeah, let's start a science crusade against all religions and wipe out their followers, I'll start with my girlfriend (she fried my poor motherboard a week ago trying to 'help' me...

)

I'll take her.