Japanese Man Hibernates for 3 weeks...or not?

[bent-stick]

Anyone see this story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6197339.stm

Reading between the lines of the last 2 paragraphs there seems to be a bit of doubt about whether it's possible...

 

[Snufkin]

Sounds like a great idea. I'm just off for a nap, see you folks in March .

 

[JonnyP]

Yeah, wouldn't it be great to hibernate........

 

[gregorach]

Yeah, I could go some of that...

Seriously though, the human body is capable of some seriously wierd things in the right conditions - for example, small children have occassionally survived for significant periods (up to several hours) without oxygen in a kind of "suspended animation" having fallen through ice into very cold water (I think I've got that right, anyway). If that's possible, then 24 days without water doesn't seem so far-fetched.

 

[bilko]

There is a great big thick line here between what we know to be science fact and the unknown.
Whilst i don't personaly believe it to be true there is the possibility that it could be if you have an open mind.
A long time ago i heard about a cult that gave up eating. The leader, a woman said that she had not eaten for several years and claimed to nourish herself with ectoplasm. It is also i believe true that one can fall into ice water and be resucetated several hours later ( Some very nasty experiments were done by the nazis on these lines ) and i believe there is documented evidence from recent times. I think the water has to be extremely cold though. I don't think it will be too long before they find an effective way of freezing human organs without ice crystals forming. The ice ruptures the organs which is why cryogenics is still in it's infancy. There was a story not so long ago about an indian boy who sat under a tree in meditation for 40 days and heralded to be the new Buddha ( alledgedly ) .
It seems to take a long time for the scientific reality to catch up to the theoretical discoveries.

 

[Jodie]

The Merck Manual has a cheery section on 'Near Drowning' which
mentions the mammalian diving reflex as something that might account
for the suspended animation after falling in very cold water. Not sure
that this would work on dry land however.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec24/ch294/ch294a.html

I'm spectacularly unconvinced though by Jasmuheen (Ellen Greve) the
breatharian who claims to live on light...

 

[xylaria]

Three weeks is quite a staggering claim. The human body can do some strange things to stay alive. I am not sure about an ordinary joe being able to be cold for that long and been OK with it. There are serveral Farkis and Buddhist monks that have meditated for phenomenal periods without water, some of these must be genuine. I do agree with Jodie about the breatharians sound about geniune as an e-mail wanting your bank account details so a nigerian prince can cash a cheque.

Anaestethologists can kind of induce a hibernation state in people. In russia where ice is easier to come by than heart-lung machines it is common practice to chill up heart patients before surgery.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/1998/022698/Doctors.html

I have also read of case where a baby born at 23 weeks was declared dead, left in corridor for several hours. On been wheeled to the morgue the porter heard a faint noise. The baby was very hypothermic, but survived. The wierdist thing about the case is that baby is now a normal healthy child. Under present medical practice 23 weeks is the edge of life. Of the few that survive the vast majority have developmental problems. As with the hypothermic anaestethia the cooling of the brain may of had a protective effect against bleeding.

 

[Spark]

In relation to the cooling of the brain there was a programme on channel 5 a couple of months ago. It was called 'Medicines strangest cases', it featured a man from the USA who had a brain tumor that would kill him in a few months. All other treatments had failed as the tumor was deep inside his brain. This pioneering operaton was his only chance as a conventional operation would cause severe brain damage.

The doctors gradually lowered his body temprature by pumping his blood through a machine to cool it until he was technically dead. Then they would have a maximum of an hour to remove the tumour. After the tumour had been removed the mans blood was slowly reheated until his heartbeat returned.
They were unsure whether he would awake but after a few days in a coma he awoke. The man could remember his name and other details. He suffered no brain damage.

The reason he didn't suffer any brain damage was because his brain needed less and less oxygen as he was cooled. Quite an advance in the medical world.