Potential Breakthrough in PED’s (Performance Enhancing Devices /not Drugs)
A recent article by Ian Sample in The Guardian September 13, 2024 has given us insight into the possible
use of a scientific discovery that could be adapted to a product that would preclude the need to train at
altitude or even live in a hypobaric environment such as those houses made famous by the Nike Oregon
Project. The goal of altitude training is to increase the production of red blood cells to carry more oxygen
to muscle cells. If we could get more oxygen into the bloodstream by other means, it might also stimulate
the production of more RBC’s around those oxygen molecules or at least maximize the potential for oxygen
to be taken into the bloodstream and consumed in energy production.
From The Guardian I kid you not.
Ig Nobel prize goes to team who found mammals
can breathe through anuses
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions,
researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses.
After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered
through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory
failure.
The team is among 10 recognised in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent
accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”. They are not to
be confused with the more lucrative and career-changing Nobel prizes to be handed out in Scandinavia next
month.
The latest crop of Ig Nobel winners received their awards at a ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology on Thursday. The event featured real Nobel laureates to distribute the prizes, “24/7” lectures in
which experts first explained their subject in 24 seconds, then in seven words, and copious paper-plane
throwing.
“
The discovery announced at the Ig Nobel prize ceremony is that some animals can breathe through their anuses.Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. And you may ask how big is the average large and small intestine.
Medical News Today indicates the following in layman’s terms.
1. The large intestine, when stretched, is similar to the height of a short adult.
2. The small intestine, on average, is longer than a van and about the length of a medium sized pick up truck.
3. Small intestine lengths differ among individuals by about the height of a very tall person.
4. Research suggests that the total surface area of the intestines is roughly half of a badminton court.
Okay you are asking , why is that piece of crap so important and how can it make a person run better?
Well if you can increase your breathing surface area by half the size of a badminton court might you not
increase the amount of oxygen that you can take into your body and use for metabolizing glucose to carry
you further and faster toward the finish line? A badminton court is 69.46 square meters, and the surface
area of the alveoli in a normal size human is about 75 square meters. So adding the intestinal wall for
oxygen exchange surface would nearly double a person's capacity to absorb oxygen. That's a lot bigger
percentage that the latest running shoe technology offers a runner.
We’ve ass-igned that problem to our research committee at
OUTV to come up with a plan.
At first they hypothesized that one might train the sphincter muscle at the end of the rectum to suck in rather
than blow out, thus bringing air laced with oxygen into the intestines to be absorbed directly into the
bloodstream just like is done in the lungs in that other branch of the organism. A yogi was asked to try to
work with a group of subjects to train the sphincter to ‘breathe in’. But it didn’t work very well. Subjects
could not get off their collective asses to open the passageway.
Then late one night one of our researchers opened his tea thermos to make some more tea, and the answer
fell out of the thermos looking up at him in the sink. This is what he saw.
The Thermos and the Insert
As you too can see, the thermos contained a tubular insert in which one can place a tea bag or loose tea to be
surrounded by hot water and thus infuse the hot water with the botanical product in the tea bag through the
tiny holes in the tube. Wow, our researcher was floored. Why didn’t he think of that in the first place? How
many past scientists and theoreticians have said the same thing? Galileo, Einstein, Harry Potter?
Why not just allow air to fill the filter and let it transmit the oxygen directly into the bloodstream through the
intestine wall?
I mean it’s like Harvey Firestone sitting around in a warehouse full of rubber in Akron, Ohio and finally seeing
the possibility of turning that rubber into a car tire or a toilet plunger.
Admittedly there are some challenges both physically and morally for how to get such an insert into the
intestineand then delivering air into it? And also how would we clear a way into the intestine to place such an object.
The intestines as we all know have other duties besides oxygen delivery. But these are challenges to be
overcome. What about a more flexible plastic insert with many perforations that could extend the whole
length of both the large and small intestines? A hundred years ago who thought we would put a man on the
moon without overcoming a few challenges? In ten years time we may all find ourselves running with
these inserts. Of course there will have to be some adaptations to running wear but nothing the best clothing
designers cannot figure out. The use of the "running insert" if that is what we might call it will allow runners
to forgo two days of carbohydrate loading before a marathon. Nutrition could be done intravenously for
those two days thus not overtaxing the digestive system.
If by now you wish to read the entire article from The Guardian that inspired this article, here is the link:
Okay, our part of this piece is satire. But the intestines can indeed breathe, given the chance.
Comments:
One can never call this a breath of fresh air. Bill Schnier
“ Anuses can breathe”
