This reminds me of the scene in The Abyss where the rat is forced to breathe in oxygen-rich perfluorocarbons[1]. I think this idea of introducing oxygen through perfluorocarbons has been explored but not sure it’s made much headway in humans to date [2]. This paper seems like a clever idea to introduce the liquid anally where oxygen can diffuse through the linings,
and to also use same liquid (because of its viscosity) to scrub the intestines of mucus, to facilitate the oxygen diffusion process.<p>[1] <a href="https://filmschoolrejects.com/the-abyss-breathing-fluid/?amp" rel="nofollow">https://filmschoolrejects.com/the-abyss-breathing-fluid/?amp</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing</a>
> Because they are highly dense, perfluorocarbons can also help flush mucus out of the intestine
> Introducing oxygen to the intestines would probably kill the microbes involved in digestion<p>Combining these two for any significant amount of time seems like a recipe for microbiota dysbiosis.<p>It would be interesting to somehow determine if most of the oxygen is absorbed in the small or large intestine.<p>Mucus is what keeps bacteria from reaching the intestinal epithelium, especially in the large intestine (<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0803124105" rel="nofollow">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0803124105</a>), and oxygenating the gut will cause a bloom in facultative aneorobes including E. coli and Salmonella, while killing anaerobic commensals like Bacteroidetes.
One other "fun" use of perflurocarbons (like fluorinated crown ethers or cyclo-alkanes) is that, containing large amounts of 19F, they are MRI visible. So, you can directly image the compound in the lungs leading to some really striking images [1, 2] while they are in the gaseous phase, or indeed in the liquid phase
when one lung is partially inflated. I <i>think</i> that some compounds like these have been proposed for use in patients who have inhaled hot or burning gasses (viz: most likely blast/explosion/deflagration victims) and suffered an internal lung injury. Oedema can impair oxygen availability at the surface of the lung and it's my understanding that there is at least one or two research projects using PFCs as an intensive life-supporting measure as a consequence .<p>[1] <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmri.26292?casa_token=0lpTuudfneAAAAAA%3AXTLcBf3NdahQv0-azJ2vOzX6gSi3zEzqwJqCpT7cgKP4VkCpawTKLgz9z_px462yopkoZI1lpzyMd3A" rel="nofollow">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmri.26292?...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mrm.28270?casa_token=1cdpIyck4SAAAAAA%3ASH6HAsM1j3BwWwAw-r7Z421DTMCJWYHVrDV6G6feJpSYjTR-bEwsTeDjspAxtJWcQST8pKR2HCYp3F8" rel="nofollow">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mrm.28270?c...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mrm.10008?casa_token=93aE3rFzrzkAAAAA%3AgdPLxZxqBncYw0uQxZxHa1-0uRZYxGWA_gCtLki51lGAccx3P-oeS5pj5wdUw9cf3EpUZNty4ilg8J0" rel="nofollow">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mrm.10008?c...</a>
One limitation I’ve seen on this is that the same mechanism can’t remove carbon dioxide, so this is limited to supplemental oxygen in like a surgery or emergency scenario vs a long-term alternative to say a tracheotomy.
Anybody else concerned about the ethics of scrubbing intestines, injecting gas into intestines, then suffocation the mammals to death?<p>Are animals in these procedures routinely anaesthetised?
Both intestines and lungs are epithelial tissue covered in mucus. I'm not that shocked by this news.<p>Edit: though I don't like the title. It's not breathing. It's absorbing oxygen.<p>Breathing involves inhalation <i>and</i> exhalation.
I think the Dutch knew about this back in the late 18th Century - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoke_enema" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoke_enema</a><p>It's where the phrase "blow smoke up your arse" comes from.
dumb question -- is it not possible to just directly oxygenate blood? like what stops having a special IV that takes blood out, oxygenates it, and puts it back in?
It seems all types of human cells absorb oxygen. Skin to a certain extent. The interesting part is researching and documenting oxygen intake per cell type.<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290093/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2290093/</a>
In a funny light, I can see this being used as a performance enhancing drug in free-dive competitions. I wonder if the one's with perfluorocarbons had to have the perfluorocarbons constantly cycled out, or if it was just an injection of a certain amount. Imagine a free diver being able to go down deeper with an extra tank of oxygen in the trunk.
Lots of folks asking where the CO2 is expelled from. I speculate, due to the lack of information, it's still being expelled through the lungs the usual way. Although, I suppose it's possible the CO2 is diffusing out the intestines and into the perflurocarbons.
Lots of talk about absorbing oxygen but little discussion about releasing carbon dioxide, or if releasing CO2 is even required with anal ventilation.<p>Also, as anyone who has had a colonoscopy can tell you, inflating the colon is on the painful side of uncomfortable.
not surprising, as methane and hydrogen produced by bacteria in the gut and detected at elevated levels in the exhaled by breath air (i.e. gut->blood->lungs) is an actual diagnostic test for SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth)
> [...] to help save human lives when standard ventilation methods are unavailable, as for example, during the recent coronavirus pandemic.<p>The tragedy of our era is how Science forgot about the antidote to oxygen toxicity in the 1950's.<p>While sometimes oxygenation and ventilation are useful, long-term use always accelerates deterioration. I knew a guy who lasted about a month on the breathing machines before giving up his ghost.<p><a href="https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202005-405LE?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed" rel="nofollow">https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202005-405...</a><p><a href="https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilation.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.taxiwars.org/2021/06/folly-medical-hyperventilat...</a>
I wonder if this kind of studies came out just as a way to justify something seen recently from rectal nutrition (Guantanamo) to anal swab covid tests (China)...
The phrase, “blowing smoke up your ass” comes from the practice of using bellows, like from a fireplace, to inflate, if you will, a drowned person rectally.
> To find out, Takanori Takebe, a gastroenterologist from Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and his colleagues tested several approaches to ventilating the intestines of mice and pigs that were deprived briefly of oxygen. In one group of 11 mice, four had their intestines scrubbed to thin the mucosal lining and improve oxygen absorption. Next, the researchers injected pure, pressurized oxygen into the rectums of the scrubbed mice and four of the seven unscrubbed ones.<p>> Then, the researchers withdrew oxygen from the animals, making them "hypoxic." The three unscrubbed mice that received no intestinal oxygen survived for a median of 11 minutes. Mice with unscrubbed intestines that received oxygen through their anuses lasted 18 minutes. Only the ventilated mice with brushed intestines lived through the hourlong experiment, with a survival rate of 75%, the researchers report today in Med.<p>This is fucking horrifying.