Hibernation could save human lives

Scientists at the University of Groningen together with the city’s UMCG hospital are researching the possibilities of having patients ‘hibernate’ to suppress immune system reactions after operations, which could damage organs. In the winter and even in the summer certain types of animals hibernate to save energy and can do so without any damage to their organs. Imagine a heart transplant patient recovering nice and slowly to make sure it all goes well. OK, it sounds like an episode of House to me, too.

According to Wikipedia, “there are many research projects currently investigating how to achieve ‘induced hibernation’ in humans. The ability for humans to hibernate would be useful for a number of reasons, such as saving the lives of seriously ill or injured people by temporarily putting them in a state of hibernation until treatment can be given.

(Link: rtvnoord, Photo by Flickr user Thelearnr, some rights reserved.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Animals, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: Groningen, hibernation