Mammals can inhale through the buttocks in an emergency

Some aquatic organisms have used organs other than the lungs and gills to evolve their own intestinal respiratory mechanisms to withstand deadly hypoxia. For example, freshwater fish called loaches, certain freshwater catfish, and sea cucumbers use the intestines for breathing. However, it is currently unknown whether mammals have similar abilities.

Researchers have recently discovered that rodents and pigs share this viability with aquatic organisms. Animals can use the intestines for breathing. Researchers have demonstrated that delivery of oxygenated liquid or gas through the rectum provided essential relief for two mammalian models of respiratory failure.

Takanori Takebe, Senior Research Author of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Press release:

Ventilation assistance plays an important role in the clinical management of respiratory failure due to serious illnesses such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Side effects and safety need to be thoroughly evaluated in humans, but our approach may offer a new paradigm to support critically ill patients with respiratory failure.

In New research, Takebe and his collaborators provide evidence of abdominal breathing in mice, rats and pigs. They did so in two separate experiments-one with oxygen gas and one with oxygenated liquid.

First, they designed an intestinal gas system that administers pure oxygen through the rectum of mice and used it to test the ability of animals to inhale through the anus. The study found that mice could not survive more than 11 minutes of lethal hypoxia without the system. However, using an anal ventilator, 75% of mice survived for 50 minutes under the same life-threatening conditions.

The disadvantage of this approach is that the intestinal gas ventilation system requires wear of the intestinal mucosa and is unlikely to be clinically feasible (especially in critically ill patients). So the team created a liquid-based alternative made of oxygenated perfluorochemicals for the second experiment. Such chemicals have already been clinically shown to be biocompatible and safe in humans.

The intestinal fluid ventilation system has provided beneficial therapeutic results for pigs and rodents exposed to non-lethal hypoxia. Mice given liquid-based oxygen can walk further in the 10% oxygen chamber and reach the heart with more oxygen than unventilated mice. Pigs gave similar results. In addition, intestinal fluid ventilation reversed the coldness and paleness of the skin and increased the animal’s oxygen levels without any obvious side effects.

In conclusion, the results of both experiments show that this oxygen supply strategy is effective. Gaseous and liquid oxygen reach circulation and relieve respiratory failure in both mammalian model systems.

With its discovery, scientists hope that their new system can be applied to humans, primarily during a pandemic, Diseases caused by air pollution..

Takebe said:

The recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has overwhelmed the clinical need for ventilators and lungs, resulting in a significant shortage of available devices and endangering the lives of patients worldwide. Being exposed. The level of arterial oxygenation provided by our ventilation system, when scaled for human applications, is sufficient to treat patients with severe respiratory failure and provides life-saving oxygenation. There is a possibility.

With the support of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, researchers will elaborate on preclinical research and pursue regulatory measures to speed the path to clinical translation. They want to use their work to fight the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Of course, our respiratory system is much more complex than the rodent and pig respiratory system, but perhaps the team will find a way to make it work and save many lives!