Medical treatments devised for war can quickly be implemented in US hospitals | Hacker News Reader

Medical treatments devised for war can quickly be implemented in US hospitals

theconversation.com

30 pointsPaulHoule9 comments

>To build on our findings, we’ve launched a trial to study the use of artificial intelligence to automate oxygen delivery.

Not to beat a dead horse but looking over what I believe is the patent [1] for the oxygen delivery device in question this seems to be another case of a standard industrial control algorithm being dressed up as "AI"

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3996787B1/en

Adding to that, I struggle to think of many things more terrifying than relying on contemporary AI for oxygen delivery.

This is an important story. A lot of people are over-oxygenated by their health care professionals.

A common way that people induce 'too much oxygen' is by hyperventilating. One effect of hyperventilating is that it shrinks the peripheral arteries - in the brain, fingers, toes.

The simplest treatment for hyperventilation is recycling exhaled carbon dioxide with a paper bag.

> Our research, and that of others, found that too much oxygen can actually be harmful. Excess oxygen triggers oxidative stress – an overload of unstable molecules called free radicals that can damage healthy cells. That can lead to more inflammation, slower healing and even organ failure.

> In short, while oxygen is essential, more isn’t always better. [...]

> We discovered that severely injured patients often require less oxygen than previously believed. In fact, little or no supplemental oxygen is needed to safely care for 95% of these patients

Oxidative stress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress

Antioxidant > Levels in food: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioxidant#Levels_in_food

Anthocyanin antioxidants: https://www.google.com/search?q=anthocyanin+antioxidants

Deep sea divers know about oxygen toxicity;

Trimix (breathing gas) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimix_(breathing_gas) :

> With a mixture of three gases it is possible to create mixes suitable for different depths or purposes by adjusting the proportions of each gas. Oxygen content can be optimised for the depth to limit the risk of toxicity, and the inert component balanced between nitrogen (which is cheap but narcotic) and helium (which is not narcotic and reduces work of breathing, but is more expensive and can increase heat loss).

> The mixture of helium and oxygen with a 0% nitrogen content is generally known as heliox. This is frequently used as a breathing gas in deep commercial diving operations, where it is often recycled to save the expensive helium component. Analysis of two-component gases is much simpler than three-component gases.

HFNC (High-Flow Nasal Cannula) breathing tube therapy is recommended by various medical guidelines.

HFNC and prone positioning is one treatment protocol for COVID and ARDS Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: you put them on their stomach and give them a breathing tube (instead of a ventilator on their backs).

Which treatment protocols and guidelines should be updated given these findings?

For which conditions is HFNC therapy advisable given these findings?

Heated humidified high-flow therapy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heated_humidified_high-flow_th...

Nothing can get quickly implemented in the medical field.

Members of the military have restricted rights because of the nature of service, and because of the nature of combat I suppose to some extent it makes sense they may do things faster or differently than civilian medicine. But I don’t think we should be intimating that civil and military medicine are exactly the same and we should completely throw out the slower, more cautious nature of the civil side. It’s not like the military has had a storied history of recklessness and malpractice in the name of expediency or anything /s

The story is about how medicine assumes that if a little oxygen is good, more is better. But in the real world too much oxygen destroys lungs, and we’re all deteriorated by even a little too much O2.

I, for one, welcome the reconsideration of oxygen anti-therapy.

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