Science confirms that you can breathe through your anus

A team of Japanese researchers has developed a surprising technique for adding oxygen to the blood that could be used to save human lives. The treatment, successfully tested on pigs, consists of passing an oxygen-rich liquid through the anus. The report was published in the journal 'Med'.

People with low blood oxygen levels, for example from serious illnesses like pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome, can be treated in intensive care with a ventilator, which blows air into their lungs. But this can damage tissue. Scientists wondered whether mammals could absorb oxygen through their intestines, as some aquatic organisms do. Sea cucumbers, freshwater fish called loaches, and certain freshwater catfish use their intestines to breathe. In mammals, the rectum is lined with a thin membrane that allows certain compounds to be absorbed into the bloodstream, which is why some drugs are given as suppositories.

In the new study, the team tested the idea in pigs by giving them enemas of a type of liquid called perfluorocarbon, which can contain high levels of oxygen. These fluids have been investigated as a way to breathe liquid and are already used to help protect the lungs of premature babies. Obviously, this is nowhere near enough to figure out how to breathe properly to sing.

As reported in the journal New Scientist, the researchers anesthetized four pigs and put them on a ventilator that gave them a lower-than-normal breathing rate, so their blood oxygen levels dropped. When they gave two of the pigs enemas of oxygenated fluid, replaced once an hour, their blood oxygen levels increased significantly after each infusion. The same effect occurred when the fluid was administered by a tube surgically inserted into the rectums of the other two pigs.
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