The World's First Heartless Man



Doctors from the Texas Heart Institute have successfully replaced a patient's heart with a device that keeps the blood flowing, thereby allowing him to live without a detectable heartbeat or even a pulse. Here's how it works:

The turbine-like device, that are simple whirling rotors, developed by the doctors does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose.

Craig Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis, which causes a build-up of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working, according to NPR.

But after the operation, with the ‘machine’ as his heart's replacement, Lewis’ blood continued to spin and move through his body.

However, when doctors put a stethoscope to his chest, no heartbeat or pulse can be heard (only a ‘humming’ sound)—which “by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, he is dead.

This is proof that “human physiology can be supported without a pulse”.

With all the talk of replacing human organs with those of an animal and electronic hearts, it's surprising that medical researchers overlooked taking a trip to the plumbing section of the hardware store for replacement parts!

Link

Man must be somewhat handicapped with no pause for gas exchange in the alveoli. How do the blood cells saturate when they're pumped through lungs without pausing?
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@Jill Harness are you saying then that the oil pump and the fuel pump in your car are not pumps? A pump is simply a device used to move a fluid.
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I know we don’t want to die and don’t want our loved ones to die, but nature demands that we have a limited time on this planet… so this is cool but morally wrong. If everyone lives pretty soon no one will be allowed to reproduce, which is against nature. Still pretty cool.

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you over 30-35? yes? please drop dead now. your existence is immoral and an afront of nature since average lifespan of human beings was well under 40 years just a few hundred years ago. probably a lot lower at some point.

Death is a disease. Something to be fixed/terminated

In fact fixing this problem we call death and dramatically extending human lifespans (at least 200 better 300 years) would "FIX" a tremendous number of our problems. Namely that of "consequences" Most of the uber wealthy people "do things" that are "not so good" but because the "effect" or consequences of their decisions will not be realized until after they are dead they simply do not care.
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*sigh*
Were morphing into robots. And since we will all be mechanical in 30 years time, Google will probably take over the world and be our ruler
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I hope he gets an alert bracelet (or a t-shirt) that says something like, "I might not have a pulse, but I ain't dead yet!", for those times when passes out at a party or somesuch.
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I believe this is what Dick Chenney has. It is designed to only last about 5 years or so, and is meant to be a stop gap until a transplant or newer technology comes along. It also has to be connected to a battery back that the patient wears externally and the battery CANNOT get wet. The patients are also told to wear a bracelt saying they do not have a heartbeat so they are not killed by somebody trying to revive them with a defibrillator.
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I wonder if he can exercise? Typically your heart beats harder and faster to get oxygen to your muscles faster. I wonder if he can speed up the pump.
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Nitpicker here. He still has a heart.

The native heart is visible on his chest x-ray as the mottled-white shadow in the center of the image. The device appears to have been inserted as a supplement to his poorly-contractile heart.
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morally wrong? if it was your loved one on the table and this is what kept them from dying you wouldn't think if this is wrong or right with nature.It might be weird but it is a very good thing for all those people or should i say children that are on a long waiting list....i rather replace my parts rather than freeze myself and hope i get thawed out and fixed....anyway...nice post...gives me hope for this world.
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"“by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, he is dead."

*All* the criteria? Not much of a doctor then if the only criterion he uses for checking for life is the hearbeat. There are other life signs you know, doc.
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I think the biggest thing here is that it doesn't pump blood, it just forces it to flow non-stop. That doesn't seem like a heart to me, given that he has no heartbeat. You wouldn't consider a faucet to be heart-like would you?
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@catsvillage

I completely disagree... longer lifespans will have some serious fallout in the short term, but in the long term, that's where technology is taking us (and I consider tech as part of this planet's evolution).
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I know we don't want to die and don't want our loved ones to die, but nature demands that we have a limited time on this planet... so this is cool but morally wrong. If everyone lives pretty soon no one will be allowed to reproduce, which is against nature. Still pretty cool.
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