Question: Can Suspended Animation Extend Life?
Answer: Suspended animation is the process of slowing metabolism and other activity associated with living through external means (such as applying cold) without causing death. This idea has led to all sorts of science fiction applications of suspended animation, the most common example is putting the idea of putting astronauts in suspended animation during space flights of incredibly long duration.
Suspended Animation, Not Cryonics
When people typically think of suspended animation and life extension, they often get confused between suspended animation and the idea of cryonics. In cryonics, a person is literally frozen using liquid nitrogen. The person is, technically, dead. The cryonics proponents believe that, as technology develops, a frozen person cold be reanimated, or brought back to life. Some (very rich people) have chosen to have their bodies frozen at the moment of death using cryonics with the idea that, decades or centuries from now, they could be reanimated and the cause of their death can be treated. I would say this is science fiction, expect that the freezing part has already happened (see The Cryonics Institute ), what hasn't happened is that whole reviving and treating part in the future.Suspended Animation Extends Life
Suspended animation, however, is an entirely different thing. Doctors are looking into the possibilities of placing a person in a state of suspended animation during certain surgical procedures to, in essence, buy time to fix things. Not only that, but there are other ways to achieve suspended animation than simply making a body cold (such as hydrogen sulfide gas in the correct dosage which suspends that need for oxygen in the body). There has been research in which animals were revived after being in a "technically dead" state for three hours. This line of research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and and other scientific organizations. If suspended animation can be developed for use in trauma and other situations, it would have the potential to increase the survival rate from these procedures, thereby extending life.Bottom Line
Suspended animation has the potential to extend life in the next decade or so by giving surgeons additional tools to "buy time" to transport patients to the point of care and to allow for longer, more complex, surgical procedures.Source(s):
NIH Pioneer Program. Dr. Cheng Chi Lee
DARPATech, DARPA’s 25 Systems and Technology Symposium. August 7, 2007
