4 ms·

Still super interesting. My (completely flawed) intuition was that the blood would be fried useless by any dosage enough to kill bacteria!

ceejayoz 7y ago
It does note that "only 5–7% of blood volume needs to be treated with UV to produce the optimum benefit", so you'd be left with enough functional blood. It's certainly interesting, but it's gonna be misused as a "see Trump was right!" bludgeon today by people who skip the conclusion ("use for drug-resistant bacterial sepsis").
- tgv 7y ago
  > It does note that "only 5–7% of blood volume needs to be treated with UV to produce the optimum benefit", so you'd be left with enough functional blood. The context leading up to that phrase puts the treatment in a different light (forgive the pun): "However the use of UBI (Ultraviolet blood irradiation) to treat septicemia cannot be solely due to UV-mediated killing of bacteria in the blood-stream, ...". And UBI of course needs a machine hooked up to your arteries. It's not shining light in your body.
syntheticnature 7y ago
Ah, but as pointed out else-thread, it's not killing the bacteria. From the Conclusions section: "Many people therefore assume that UBI must act by killing pathogens (bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms) circulating in the bloodstream. However there is no evidence that this is actually the case." The benefits are then ascribed to homesis, much like how low-dose ionizing radiation actually seems to benefit the immune system.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  My intuition as someone who has a UV light on their drinking water is also that the blood would also be too opaque for direct irradiation, anyway. (You need to filter your water before it hits the UV light, because if it is eg cloudy or has too many minerals in it, the water treatment salesman tells me, the UV light won't actually do anything.)

4 ms·

Still super interesting. My (completely flawed) intuition was that the blood would be fried useless by any dosage enough to kill bacteria!

by jacobush 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago
It does note that "only 5–7% of blood volume needs to be treated with UV to produce the optimum benefit", so you'd be left with enough functional blood. It's certainly interesting, but it's gonna be misused as a "see Trump was right!" bludgeon today by people who skip the conclusion ("use for drug-resistant bacterial sepsis").
- tgv 7y ago
  > It does note that "only 5–7% of blood volume needs to be treated with UV to produce the optimum benefit", so you'd be left with enough functional blood. The context leading up to that phrase puts the treatment in a different light (forgive the pun): "However the use of UBI (Ultraviolet blood irradiation) to treat septicemia cannot be solely due to UV-mediated killing of bacteria in the blood-stream, ...". And UBI of course needs a machine hooked up to your arteries. It's not shining light in your body.
syntheticnature 7y ago
Ah, but as pointed out else-thread, it's not killing the bacteria. From the Conclusions section: "Many people therefore assume that UBI must act by killing pathogens (bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms) circulating in the bloodstream. However there is no evidence that this is actually the case." The benefits are then ascribed to homesis, much like how low-dose ionizing radiation actually seems to benefit the immune system.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  My intuition as someone who has a UV light on their drinking water is also that the blood would also be too opaque for direct irradiation, anyway. (You need to filter your water before it hits the UV light, because if it is eg cloudy or has too many minerals in it, the water treatment salesman tells me, the UV light won't actually do anything.)