eli5: If someone dies in a hospital, why can’t we just give them organs and blood ASAP?
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My knowledge is limited as I’m only just beginning to get a degree in physiology. But from what I’ve learned, the most important thing to maintain in the body under abnormal conditions is blood glucose levels because glucose can be broken down with the help of oxygen to create ATP, which is energy. Without ATP, our organs can’t perform various functions and in about 4 minutes, we can have permanent brain damage if there’s no oxygen and death can occur in 4-6 minutes. The brain controls everything. Without the brain working, the blood vessels that supply oxygen in our blood to all the organs will no longer be functional and our organs will die. If someone died, you’d need to replace their brain, and brain transplants to my knowledge aren’t possible. I’m not sure if something I said was inaccurate but here are my thoughts on why we possibly can’t just replace organs and blood.
For everyone saying you wouldn’t give blood and organs to a dead person, medicine is getting much better than it was. A pig was basically brought back to life after being dead for two hours.
When we think of a person dying, we think their heart isn’t beating, but a lot of times it’s basically just “fluttering.” If we can restore blood flow to it by artificially pumping their blood and using a gas exchanger to oxygenate it, we can get adequate blood flow to it. This machine exists and is used for some surgeries. Then in theory you can defibrillate it. The heart can function if a significant portion of the cells are dead.
When blood flow is stopped to the brain for over 5 minutes, approximately, the cells start dying. Again, the brain can still function if a large portion of it is dead.
What a lot of people said regarding the finite supply of blood and organs holds true. There are only so much, and so many, of each. These are reserved for those that truly need them. If someone drinks alcohol, smokes, or uses other drugs they can be disqualified. The same holds true for people with unhealthy life choices. Also, the number of skilled surgeons who can perform these operations is limited. This is compounded by the fact if we started doing this, the system will become overburdened. Something people don’t take into account is when people have this option, they will take it, and not take care of themselves.
If you look at regenerative medicine, it is improving. This would probably be what you want to look at for cases of old age and illness. Regarding trauma, restoring blood flow and giving a transfusion would probably be the better way to go if blood supply wasn’t an issue. There aren’t enough blood donors so this is a major issue. People are constantly working on trying to improve this with artificial blood, or creating transgenic animals with compatible blood.
If this really concerns you, go to your local Red Cross or other blood bank and donate as soon as possible. See if they offer apheresis. You can do this more often and help more people.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/xmzhos/experiments_in_the_revival_of_organisms_1940/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Edit 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/longevity/comments/xlz7k8/harvard_biophysicist_regenerative_medicine_will/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Edit 3: This is the pig article I was talking about. https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/wfevt3/yaledeveloped_technology_restores_cell_organ/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Human bodies are not just blood and organs. There are so many biological systems in the body that we still have not discovered them all.
Organ donation is incredibly slow and complicated even with months of notice.
The brain is the most delicate and vital organ. Irreversible brain damage begins only minutes after the heart stops.
Impossible with current medicine, but theoretically a *brain* could be transplanted into another body, thus “saving” the person at least mentally.
Most people don’t die from blood loss, but from old age/diseases/degeneration. I assume you are talking about people who die from major trauma, like gunshots or car accidents. Firstly, we don’t have any spare organs sitting in coolers anywhere. There are hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists waiting and trying not to hope for a suitable donor organ (because that means hoping for somebody else to die). Transplants are done one at a time after carefully preparing the recipient, not on the fly in a rural ER after a six car pileup.
Usually when somebody dies of major trauma, it’s for a good reason, like an axe blow to the head. We could and do give them a bunch of blood but their brain is already dead or dying.
We’re all just souls riding our own little meatwagons. When the wheels come off and the engine breaks down it’s all over. You don’t put a worn out soul in a brand new meatwagon.
Your body needs electrical impulses to live. These come from the brain and get sent through the nerves. If an organ doesn’t receive electrical impulses from the brain, they don’t respond, so they don’t work. Replacing the organs or blood won’t matter if the brain doesn’t function to send signals for the organs to work.
Edited: Just to make it read a little better.
You would have to intervene much sooner than before they are dead. You would have to do something to support them when they are alive.
We do not have the ability to recover the dead. Usually when someone dies, things change in their body that we are not yet able to reverse.
I do not doubt that death will become a minor inconvenience at some point in the future, but for now it is mostly insurmountable.
We can recover people from some cardiac events and certain traumas, but for the most part dead is an ending we can not overcome.
I think you’re really overestimating how much organs and blood there are to give to people
And I also think you’re really overestimating medical technology
Is this a serious question?
There are way more dying old people than organ donors for one – and if they were likely to survive such a surgery for any length of time we’d already have tried it.
Either the injury is catastrophic, or their body is old and frail and cancer-ridden and a total waste of a donor organ.
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