Hibernation for humans? Sleep on it

Post date: Jan 27, 2011 2:17:38 PM

Judy Griesedieck, Star Tribune

Hibernating golden gophers need little oxygen.

U research on the possible benefits gets "Nova" exposure.

By KELLY SMITH, Star Tribune

Last update: January 26, 2011 - 9:59 PM

It's that time of year: Holed up for the winter, sluggish from the weather, lethargic from those extra holiday pounds. Why not make like a bear, hunker into hibernation until spring, and emerge lean and rested?

"We live in Minnesota; it would be nice to wake up weighing 20 pounds less in March," said Greg Beilman, a University of Minnesota researcher and surgeon. That notion might not be as far off as you think if work by Beilman and Duluth researchers Matt Andrews and Lester Drewes, studying the effects hibernation features could have on humans, keeps picking up steam.

It got a significant dose of national exposure Wednesday on the PBS program "Nova,'' which aired "Can we live forever?"

"For us, it's a big deal," Andrews said.

While human hibernation is still decades away, their research progressed from studying rats to partnering with Beilman, who's studying pigs. Next up: humans, they hope.

"Hibernation is just this extremely cool phenomenon that allows an animal to go into suspended animation," Andrews said. "You can learn this secret from nature to apply it to therapy for people -- that's a novel idea."

Using ground squirrels, or golden gophers, they've studied how hibernating animals survive on little blood and oxygen. They want to translate that to saving human lives and preserving organs. For example, trauma victims who have lost a lot of blood could be injected with a mixture that would replace glucose in blood to keep them alive longer, increasing the odds of getting to a hospital. A golden gopher victory, of sorts.

"People may think of these things as pests, but this just shows people they have a lot of evolutionary features and we could learn a lot from them," Andrews said.

The "Nova" program will be rebroadcast at 3 a.m. Thursday, 3 p.m. Saturday and online.

The professors and their graduate students didn't miss the show, tuning in over pizza for what Andrews called "our own Super Bowl party. Does that sound geeky or what?"

Kelly Smith • 612-673-4141

*** I am very interested in this. I DVR Marty Stouffer's 'Wild America' from the 80's and I was just showing my kids an episode on Alaskan Artic Ground squirrels that when they hibernate their body temperature drops below freezing. Now that is amazing! - John Hedstrom

JUST LITTLE VARMINTS

Ground Squirrels would not win a popularity contest; unless, of course, you’re a hungry Hawk, Fox or Black-footed Ferret. From the Arctic Ground Squirrel of Alaska and the Golden-mantled of the Rockies to the ubiquitous Prairie Dog, our concealed cameras shed light on why these under-appreciated little critters allow us all to enjoy Nature’s most magnificent species.

http://www.wild-mart.com/c-2-individual-years.aspx