[HN Gopher] E-bandages lightly zap and heal wounds
___________________________________________________________________
E-bandages lightly zap and heal wounds
Author : gmays
Score : 79 points
Date : 2023-03-07 20:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| jtbayly wrote:
| Would my body absorbing this metal be detrimental to my health in
| other ways?
| pacaro wrote:
| AFAICT recommended max daily dose of molybdenum is 2mg per day.
| Above that it starts to get pretty nasty
| amalcon wrote:
| There are a lot of metals in your diet. Iron and sodium are
| most famous, but others are present too. You need a little of
| most of them, but too much can be toxic. Probably there's a lot
| in this thing; it's not clear from the article if it's enough
| to cause a problem.
| jws wrote:
| The study, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade4687
| suggests in figure 1 that the device is 0.5mg of molybdenum and
| dissolves over an 18 day period, ~30ug/day. This is less than
| your recommended dietary allowance of 45ug/day and about two
| orders of magnitude under the tolerable upper intake level.
|
| You will also find in the study analysis of what compounds the
| molybdenum forms as it dissolves.
|
| Also, who knew they were supposed to be getting molybdenum
| every day? Somehow I feel a bit more cyborgy now, like maybe
| there is a tiny gear in me somewhere that needs to be greased.
| [deleted]
| hammock wrote:
| Acute toxicity of molybdenum (Mo), the metal in question, has
| not been seen in humans, and the toxicity depends strongly on
| the chemical state.
|
| Studies on rats show a median lethal dose (LD50) as low as 180
| mg/kg for some Mo compounds.
|
| Although human toxicity data is unavailable, animal studies
| have shown that chronic ingestion of more than 10 mg/day of
| molybdenum can cause diarrhea, growth retardation, infertility,
| low birth weight, and gout; it can also affect the lungs,
| kidneys, and liver
| moffkalast wrote:
| I'm no doctor, but that does sound rather unpleasant.
| Someone wrote:
| 180mg/kg is 10 grams for a 55 kg (=fairly lightweight) human.
|
| Also, 10mg/day in which animals? I would guess animals that
| are a lot smaller than humans, possibly even mice (weight:
| less than 1/1000 of that of a human)
| BelleOfTheBall wrote:
| I imagine a tiny amount would be okay, based on the scientists'
| reactions. However, I wonder if chronic use of this, which is
| how it'd be for diabetics, would actually lead to bad
| consequences. Perhaps the material is specifically tailored to
| be not just prone to absorption but also neutral/positive when
| processed by the body?
| gpm wrote:
| There's a lot of medical technology that involves sticking
| metal inside of people _permanently_ , as long as they're
| making it out of the right kind of metal it's hard to believe
| it would be an issue to stick it on your skin.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| The article notes it doesn't just sit on your skin, but is
| designed to break down and be absorbed as the wound heals. So
| the amount of metal is a legit concern.
| doubled112 wrote:
| And they always get it right, like cobalt in hip
| replacements.
| dharmab wrote:
| I once dissected a titanium knee replacement that had been
| implanted in a human. The surrounding tissue was steel-grey
| from metallosis.
| pengaru wrote:
| Isn't that a unique property of titanium and part of _why_
| it 's chosen for skeletal implants?
|
| When a buddy got a damaged tooth replaced with an implant,
| he showed me medical scans of the titanium rod in-situ with
| the surrounding bone highlighted as growing into the rod as
| if they had an affinity for one another. It was part of a
| document explaining the safety and why titanium was chosen,
| how the body doesn't reject the material as foreign etc.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| My mother had a metal mesh implant for a knee injury in the
| 70's and later had to have it extracted and her entire knee
| replaced.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I have metal in my body planted without my consent via an
| explosive device and the doctors don't care to take it out.
| The risk of infection outweighs the risk of it staying in my
| body.
| [deleted]
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I wondered why electricity would help a wound heal in the first
| place.
|
| > The inflammation associated with these wounds can disrupt the
| body's normal electric signals, impeding the migration of new
| cells that can support the healing process.
| sva_ wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of Michael Levin's work, where they use
| electrical signals to cause organisms to regrow limbs.
| slackdog wrote:
| I suppose it's probably an unrelated effect, but electron beams
| are often used for sterilizing things like food, medical
| packaging, etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_processing
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation#Electron_beam
| psychphysic wrote:
| Honestly, that is indistinguishable from the crystal mumbojumbo
| you get. And it feels like we're at the magic/science interface
| with electrotherapy.
|
| That said it is somewhat suspect, and the hypothesis is not
| really falsifiable by the experiment which is why the journal
| article itself is not claiming to test that. It is really
| disappointing that IEEE didn't actually link to or name the
| article directly. Very poor science journalism there.
|
| The article is that they observed this process working, not why
| it works. Maybe it works because it kills bacteria...?
| iandanforth wrote:
| Nope ion concentration gradients (which also manifest as
| electrical potentials) serve to guide everything from white
| blood cells to the precursors of both replacement and scar
| tissue. You can mimic this signal directly by applying a
| potential difference.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10849.
| ..
| LegitShady wrote:
| your cells are sensitive to charge in general - cells attempt
| to maintain certain voltage differentials across their
| membranes via ion channels in the cell membrane, can
| communicate voltage information with each other via gap
| junctions, etc. That electrical communication does control how
| cells behave.
|
| If you have 20 minutes to watch this ted talk interview I
| highly recommend it. My mind was blown. Your DNA determines the
| hardware, but there's a lot of non chemical communication that
| goes on between cells that determine how they behave.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XheAMrS8Q1c
|
| Once you realize that cells can effectively communicate with
| each other via voltage, things like whats described about
| electrical bandages become less surprising.
|
| If you've got a little more time (2 hours) there's a much
| longer more detailed interview here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0TNfysTazc
|
| This is some next level stuff. Imagine DNA describes what your
| hardware looks like, but the software your cells run may be
| bioelectrical in large enough ways to consider that maybe your
| skin has some level cognition.
| jongjong wrote:
| This sounds cool but its usefulness seems limited.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-03-08 23:00 UTC)