Its pretty much a given at this stage that as a child, we’ve all tried holding our breath under water. Be it in a bathtub or lake, we all tested ourselves. Curious as to how long we could go until popping up, gasping for air. As humans, we’ve always tested the limits, inventing planes to fly as we cannot and boats to sail as we simply cannot swim well enough.
If you happened to miss it, back in the summer of 2012, scientists managed to keep rabbits with blocked airways alive for up to 15 minutes without breathing. This was achieved by injecting oxygen-infused microparticles into their bloodstream.
A Traveling Source of Oxygen Particles
According to Futurism, these microparticles are composed of a single-layer lipid shell that encases a tiny bubble of oxygen gas. This design encapsulates the oxygen within a liquid mixture, preventing it from forming larger bubbles. Large oxygen bubbles would be hazardous, as they could travel to critical areas like the heart or brain. Thus posing a life-threatening risk.
We’re Talking Tiny In Scale
Remarkably, these particles are incredibly small, with an average size ranging from just 2 to 4 micrometers in diameter. To put that into perspective, the human eye typically cannot detect objects smaller than 50 micrometers. That’s roughly the size of a dust particle. For comparison, the average width of a human hair is around 80 micrometers.
A Direct Transit
These tiny particles are injected straight into the bloodstream. This is where they come into contact with red blood-cells while circulating throughout the body. According to Gizmodo, The contents of the capsule mix with the blood as this happens, transferring the oxygen within seconds.
Read More: Is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy the Key to Treating Fibromyalgia?
Speed Was an Important Focus Point
When the scientists combined the oxygen particles with blood, their research revealed that 70% of the oxygen was transferred into the blood within just 4 seconds. “By the time the microparticles get to the lungs, the vast majority of the oxygen has been transferred to the red blood cells,” said Dr. John Kheir, one of the main developers of the treat ment at Boston’s Children Hospital. This would in turn perfectly assist when there’s a blocked airway.
A First as all Other Forms of Artificial Blood Have Until now had to be Received Via the Lungs Specifically
In the 2012 study published in Science Translational Medicine, which was led by Kheir, rabbits underwent 15 minutes of complete tracheal occlusion (their air passageways were blocked), but survived the prodcudre with no negative side effects.
“I was taking care of a cute redhead girl in ICU who had severe pneumonia,” Kheir told FoxNews. “She didn’t have a breathing tube at the time, and all of a sudden she had a pulmonary hemorrhage – when lung tissue gets damaged and actually erodes into the pulmonary arteries. Her lungs filled up with blood and she went into cardiac arrest.”
A Severe Injury
Taking 25 minutes to remove all this blood also in turn created a greater issue – a severely injured, oxygen deprived brain. He furthermore explained that the oxygen particle drug could play a vital role in emergency situations such as drownings. “Our vision for this is that this drug would be stored on emergency carts all over the hospital and even outside the hospital in an ambulance,” he said.
“Any time a patient is really, really sick for any reason, whoever is taking care of them could rescue them with a standard intravenous line. The primary reason that patients have a cardiac arrest is for breathing reasons. There’s a serious potential to improve the mortality and morbidity rate of patients in the hospital.”
Read More: 6 Warning Signs You Don’t Have Enough Oxygen in Your Blood