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Get a breath of this not-so-fresh air.
Japanese and US researchers have developed a groundbreaking treatment for people who can’t breathe through their lungs — by delivering oxygen where the sun doesn’t shine.
Results from the first human clinical trial testing the so-called “butt breathing” technique suggest that it’s safe and well-tolerated, pushing the cheeky alternative one step closer to becoming a real lifesaver.
It might sound like a sketch from “Saturday Night Live,” but the Ig Nobel Prize-winning idea actually steals a page from nature’s playbook.
Loaches, a type of bottom-dwelling fish, usually breathe through their gills. But when oxygen runs low, they’re known to swim to the surface, gulp air and swallow it.
That air moves through their digestive tract, where oxygen is absorbed into the bloodstream before the rest is expelled through the anus.
Basically, loaches can breathe through their backsides — and they’re not alone. Turtles, sea cucumbers, dragonfly nymphs and even pigs can absorb oxygen in similar ways when their lungs aren’t up to the task.
Inspired by these cheeky creatures, scientists wondered if humans with blocked airways and clogged lungs could do something similar using a technique called enteral ventilation.
It works like an enema, with researchers slipping oxygen-rich liquid straight into the rectum using a lubricated tube.
Once inside, the oxygen would theoretically pass through the intestinal walls and into the bloodstream, bypassing the lungs altogether.
After early animal tests showed the treatment could stave off respiratory failure without major complications, scientists took the plunge and moved on to human trials in Japan.
They recruited 27 healthy — and brave — men who agreed to have varying amounts of perfluorodecalin liquid inserted into their rectums to hold for 60 minutes.
Twenty of them lasted the full hour, including some who took in up to a liter-and-a-half of the fluid. Participants reported bloating and discomfort, but no serious side effects.
Notably, the liquid wasn’t oxygenated — this was just a safety test to gauge whether humans could tolerate the procedure.
“This is the first human data, and the results are limited solely to demonstrating the safety of the procedure and not its effectiveness,” Dr. Takanori Takebe, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
“Now that we have established tolerance, the next step will be to evaluate how effective the process is for delivering oxygen to the bloodstream,” he added.
Looking ahead, Takebe and his colleagues are planning to test enteral ventilation with oxygenated liquid, aiming to figure out how much is needed and how long it must be held to boost patients’ blood oxygen levels.
Several health conditions can mess with the lungs’ ability to transfer oxygen to the bloodstream, from airway injuries and inflammation to pneumonia flooding the lungs with fluid.
For these patients, doctors will often provide respiratory support like mechanical ventilation or oxygen therapy — but sometimes these methods fall short.
“During the COVID pandemic, many patients died in part because there was a global shortage of ventilators,” Takebe said last year. “Enteric breathing could serve as an important alternative oxygen delivery route.”
