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Researchers complete first human trial on viability of enteral ventilation
Study: https://www.cell.com/med/abstract/S2666-6340(25)00314-9 https://www.cell.com/med/abstract/S2666-6340(25)00314-9
- vlovich123 1y agoCould this completely obviate tracheotomies and ventilators?
- f4uCL9dNSnQm 1y agoNo, the total surface of intestine is up to 40m^2, while the single lung has 100 m^2 for exchange. It might be a supplementary method at best.
- Qem 1y agoThat lung 2×100m^2 are enough for sustaining energy intensive human aerobic activities, like running a marathon. Perhaps 40m^2 is all is needed to sustain someone in low energy mode, bedridden.
- samus 1y agoEven a compromised lung is capable of fully oxygenating blood for everyday situations. One just has to compensate by breathing faster, or cycling that liquid more frequently.
- timerol 1y agoI really expected this to be overblown clickbait, but the article delivers on the title about as well as it could. I have seen many more breathless articles on treatments that weren't already conducting human safety trials as well as having animal effectiveness trials concluded. And yeah, it turns out that mammals can absorb oxygen through their butts. Weird
- leoh 1y agoNot really. Said tissues are well vascularized and therefore lend themselves to oxygen exchange. It’s just that the lungs are especially efficient for this.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoSupposedly end stage alcoholics will give themselves alcohol enemas to more readily absorb the alcohol. More direct exposure to the veins. Which sounds like a fake urban legend, but I would never discount want an addict is capable of doing.
- agobineau 1y agoit pretty common. a lot of people in my high school did this, or froze beer and inserted it to get rapidly wasted. the other classic is the tampon soaked in vodka most of this was just done because drinks were too expensive or hard to get for high schoolers and they had to optimise their alcohol supplies
- not_a_bot_4sho 1y ago> froze beer and inserted it to get rapidly wasted Wow. TIL...
- Larrikin 1y agoDon't treat an anecdote on the Internet like it actually happened. There have been people posting that they had friends of friends in college do this for twenty years. OP never did it but it definitely happened. In this case it's high schoolers, half of whom most likely have no sexual experience but are fully willing to explore their anal cavity, having access to alcohol but not that much access. They can get drunk off small amounts of alcohol, but it's such a small ration that they are freezing and destroying their limited amount of beer (which most high schoolers hate) to shove up their butts, to get drunk slightly faster? How much frozen beer can one butt fit? Is it really that much better than holding your nose and pounding it in front of your friends? Are high schoolers really going to parties with beer in their butts to maybe get a buzz of two beers from one butt beer because they only have access to one twelve pack, instead of just telling everyone how they are so wasted instead?
- Qem 1y agoThe proof of concept by sea cucumbers probably predate us by several hundred million years[1]. I wonder how .any more people could be saved from COVID with this deployed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_cucumber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_cucumber
- qyph 1y agoI wonder if this could be used for doping in aerobic sports? Could this elevate overall oxygen intake in a healthy person? My vague understanding is that oxygen intake is a big limiting factor in aerobic activities hence measurement of things like vo2max in sports science. ‘Blood doping’ has similar benefits though it’s also about having more blood period. It seems unlikely that one could take a big enough suppository to help in a meaningful way in a marathon, but in a middle distance race lasting only a few minutes…
- semicolon_storm 1y agoIt seems unlikely, athletes are consuming liters of oxygen per minute. Plus, the impact is at least partially offset by needing to carry the extra weight with you. Different story for apnea sports like freediving where a little bit of extra oxygen goes a long way.
- o11c 1y agoA liter of liquid is a lot more than a liter of gas ...
- Liftyee 1y agoIsn't liquid oxygen cryogenic (boils at -183C)? The engineering of keeping that ...there... gets interesting fast, especially when dealing with all the cold (absorbed heat from expanding gas) and containing the pressure while also releasing oxygen slowly.
- o11c 1y agoUm yeah don't use liquid oxygen. But oxygen dissolved or otherwise absorbed in a material is fair game. Even without anything fancy, water can contain about 1% free oxygen, which is 8x what you could do with gaseous oxygen (which is in turn 5x what atmospheric mixture has). And there are a lot of chemical reactions that can produce oxygen much better than 1%. The trick is going to be avoiding heat changes.
- qlm 1y agoIf this was enough to temporarily replace breathing I wonder how that would feel if you were otherwise healthy. I imagine not breathing would instinctively feel quite strange and even distressing.
- hifikuno 1y agoFrom the littlei know from a breath holding workshop I did awhile ago (for trying to get into freediving) it's the carbon dioxide build up in our blood that gives us the urge to breath, and not the lack of oxygen. If this method allowed for the removal of carbon dioxide from the blood then holding your breath might not even be discomforting. Edit: goodells explained it better!
- not_a_bot_4sho 1y agoI'm scuba certified. Now I'm wondering if I should get certified to dive with an anal rebreather too.
- dillydogg 1y agoThe acid base balance of the cerebrospinal fluid is the primary driver of the respiratory drive, like allude to with your comment on the CO2. I did want to add that the lack of oxygen can affect respiration, which is detected by the peripheral chemoreceptors, like in the carotid bodies. Additionally, the thoracic stretch receptors are important for respiratory drive, where the lack of expansion of the chest will promote respiration. When a healthy young person holds their breath for short periods, say 30 seconds or so, their blood CO2 and O2 are not much different, but they still will have to fight the instinct to breathe!
- goodells 1y agoIt would be quite distressing because of the accumulation of CO2 in the blood, even with completely adequate oxygenation delivered intrarectally. The slight change in acid-base balance is what makes a person feel the need to breathe, and CO2 is an acidic byproduct of metabolism. This is why people with metabolic acidosis (e.g. in diabetic ketoacidosis or sepsis) have an increased respiratory rate.
- polishdude20 1y agoI wonder if, given that our intestines can absorb gasses into our blood stream, if that also means we readily absorb our farts into our blood stream as well? The chemical composition of them could be having effects on your whole system maybe?
- freediver 1y agoThe answer is probably yes and they eventually get exhaled through the lungs or metabolized by various tissues. Gives whole new meaning to 'carrying the fart' though.
- russdill 1y agohttps://www.healthline.com/health/fart-in-mouth https://www.healthline.com/health/fart-in-mouth
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoWorth the risky click, that was surprisingly informative.
- richrichardsson 1y ago"Better out than in" might hold some weight if so.
- smcnally 1y ago> The technical term is enteral ventilation via anus (EVA). Anecdatally, I have encountered multiple people with congenital capabilities re enteral locution via anus. Wishfully, training astronauts for enteral ventilation via anus during extravehicular activities that involve writing an ongoing Prince song would be called “EVA EVA 4EVA.”
- plantsbeans 1y agohttps://www.cell.com/med/abstract/S2666-6340(25)00314-9 https://www.cell.com/med/abstract/S2666-6340(25)00314-9 DOI: 10.1016/j.medj.2025.100887
- tomhow 1y agoThanks, we've put that in the thread's top text now.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- carlosjobim 1y agoOxygenated blood should instead be directly injected into the main artery while deoxygenated blood is sucked out of the main vein and into a scrubber and rebreather apparatus for oxygenation. Much better in every way.
- radu_floricica 1y agoThat's an ECMO machine, and it works. It's also cumbersome and expensive. This kind of thing might easily become a standard resuscitation step in first responders.
- AnonC 1y agoThe answer to the most important question is at the end of the article. They demonstrated that this is safe, not that it’s effective. > “This is the first human data and the results are limited solely to demonstrating the safety of the procedure and not its effectiveness,” said co-author Takanori Takebe of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the University of Osaka in Japan. “But now that we have established tolerance, the next step will be to evaluate how effective the process is for delivering oxygen to the bloodstream.” If it’s proven to be effective and can help avoid ventilators for (at least some) people, it would be a huge breakthrough and improvement in the quality of life for the patient and for their close ones.
- samus 1y agoEven if it turns out it cannot fully replace it, it could help reduce operation pressure and frequency of a conventional respirator.
- BizarroLand 1y agoMy dad had covid (and passed away), but the final nail in the coffin was when he coughed against the high pressure respirator and collapsed a lung. If they had this, the would have been able to keep him oxygenated and alive long enough to repair the lung and he might have survived. I'm sure many others might benefit from this option in an emergency in the future, so I'm glad it's being examined.
- samus 1y agoSorry for your loss. That's a sad reason to die!
- rc5150 1y agoIt would be interesting to see how long it takes for this measure to make it into Advanced Directive worksheets/forms. I'd also wager that this method will be unilaterally declined by men who also decline suppositories on account of perceived homosexuality. Imagine dying because you think the life-saving practice is "gay".
- stogot 1y agoIt’s unclear how they cycle the oxygenated fluid and … cycle the fecal matter that is likely to occur
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoI was wondering how to deal with that when this becomes a therapeutic option. Worst case might be a colostomy, so somebody whose lungs don't work at all anymore can still "breathe" and poop long term. On the other hand, maybe it would be fine. The oxygenated fluid would just come out extra dirty sometimes. Also, if you're butt chugging oxygenated fluid all of the time, it's not like solids are going to have time to collect in the colon. Will oxygenating the otherwise anaerobic environment cause issues with the gut microbiota?
- silisili 1y agoInteresting. Perhaps related? The Ohio river(and probably others) used to have smoke enemas at points for drowning victims. I'm told it's where the phrase 'blowing smoke up your ass' comes from, as people eventually thought it was snake oil/foolish. So this is about oxygen delivery specifically, but I can't help but wonder if whoever came up with the old idea was onto something...
- s1artibartfast 1y agoIn the 18th century the Royal Humane Society also put rectal bellows along the banks of the Thames in London for the benefit of the drowned.
- xp84 1y agoNever in 1 million years did I think that if you saw somebody fish a body out of the Thames, and immediately pull their pants down, this might not be cause for alarm
- mitchbob 1y agoDiscussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45662831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45662831
- p0w3n3d 1y agoIt somehow resonates in me with one of the first memes I was sharing Do you think that's air you're breathing now?
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoFor those unfamiliar with this piece of internet history: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twpdnV2Yq1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twpdnV2Yq1E>
- pontifier 1y agoMy mother is currently dying in the hospital with breathing problems. I mentioned this to her earlier today... I thought this would have been much farther along than it is. Hurry up with the medical tech already!
- boltzmann-brain 1y agothere's a lot to air and gas within our digestive tract that we don't seem to understand. one time when i got salmonella, i started reading up on it (believe me, i had nothing better to do) and i postulated a hypothesis: the bacteria starts out being able to (barely) survive in your normal gut biome, but creates sulfur gas in order to thrive, and then once it does, losing that atmosphere kills it. so i started swallowing massive amounts of air, and laid down so that my head was the lowest point of my body. low tech? yes. stupid? who knows. but i was feeling better on the next day - and normally it takes a week or two to clear out. n=1, take it with a lump of salt. hopefully sharing this helps someone in some way in the future.
- djmips 1y agoFascinating idea! Sounds like the birth of a folk rememdy.
- belZaah 1y agoThere was a time, where there were bellows made available along the Thames in London. Because it was believed blowing tobacco smoke up someone’s backside would be a really useful mechanism of resuscitation, in particular in case of drowning. There’s a itsy bitsy kernel of truth in everything…
- djmips 1y agoTIL that blowing smoke up someone's ass is derived from the abolishment of this practice (apparently).
- radu_floricica 1y agoI wonder: - what's the actual oxygen carrying capacity? If they're up to human trials then I imagine they've already validated this step in animals - can it also scrub CO2? Without doing more research, I'm putting most of the probability mass into it being be a small but significant oxygenation aid. Not enough to let us survive without working lungs, but enough to push the odds in emergency situations, while also being harmless. Something like 5% extra survivability for a $100 cost and a sore butt. Well worth it, but not a revolution.
- Tade0 1y agoCO2 dissolves really well in Perfluorodecalin. EDIT: I mistook solubility of oxygen by volume for that by mass - very different figure and of course effectively much lower.
- ivan_gammel 1y agoI remember an old anecdote from my childhood: "A hedgehog figured out how to breathe with his butt, then sat on a tree stump and died". We live in times when even such jokes become close to reality.
- afarviral 1y agoWould it not be more direct to do gas exchange with blood?
- analog31 1y agoYou still need some permeable membrane with a high surface area, to exchange dissolved oxygen. In this method, the customer supplies the membrane.
- samus 1y agoSuch devices already exist and are used in heart or lung surgery, as well as in intensive care and medical emergencies. However, the potential for complications is much higher since they extract from and return blood to the body.
- bcuzrecentdeath 1y agoIs phrenic nerve stimulation (and possibly necessarily vagus nerve suppression) enough to keep a person breathing? There is eVNS; external Vagus Nerve Stimulation. Stimulating the phrenic nerve causes the diaphragm to contract. Stimulating the VNS causes airways to contract. What devices exist for "diaphragm pacing" and wouldn't that be lower risk than mechanical ventilation?
- hyperific 1y agoIf this proves to be effective (not just safe and well tolerated which is the scope of this study) it'd be interesting to see how this would be adopted by extreme athletes. Free divers who can go deeper, cyclists who can ride harder, sprinters who can run longer at full speed because they're retaining an oxygen-rich slurry in their bowels.
- Qem 1y ago> Free divers who can go deeper Makes me wonder if free divers could possibly already cheat by swallowing air, perhaps even pure O2, before dives, to slightly increase maximum time submerged through gut gas exchange. Althought this probably would mess with buyoancy a bit.