functioning . very strong magnetic fields such as those produced by the magnet in the current study, could improve blood circulation?
Rongjia Tao
Two physicists looking for a new way to prevent heart attacks and strokes have discovered that powerful magnetic fields can significantly reduce the thickness, or the viscosity of the blood flowing through a tube. The pair speculate that if this effect is for the blood in the veins and arteries, scientists could one day develop a magnetic alternative to drugs designed to keep the blood flowing in humans.
stroke and heart attacks, the leading cause of death in the industrialized world, are often associated with high blood viscosity. thick blood damages blood vessels, and to repair the damage, the vessels accumulate fatty deposits, which blows and most likely heart attacks. Currently, the only way to reduce blood viscosity is with drugs like aspirin, which inhibits the tendency of blood to clot. But aspirin has side effects :. In high doses, it can lead to stomach bleeding, ulcers, and even tinnitus, or ringing in the ears
Physicist Rongjia Tao of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and medical physicist Ke Huang of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, questioned whether the magnetic fields offered a potentially safer alternative. After all, high-strength magnets January-March tesla are already used in hospitals during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and were found to have no adverse effects on the body. Tao and Huang leave the bloodstream within a tool for measuring the blood viscosity, which itself was inside of an electromagnet producing a field of about 1.3 Tesla. They organized the components so that the blood flowed in the same direction as the magnetic field lines.
The researchers found that only 1 minute in the field was enough to reduce the viscosity of blood from 20% to 30%. After exposure, the viscosity rose to its original value after about 2 hours, but they could repeat the process to take it again. The results are described in a forthcoming article in Physical Review E .
The magnetic effect, the researchers say, everything comes back to hemoglobin, the iron-based protein in red blood cells. In the same way that iron filings align themselves along the field lines around a bar magnet, so that the red blood cells align themselves along the lines of the Tao and Huang electromagnet field lines. This reduces the viscosity of several ways. On the one hand, cells become section with the flow direction. The alignment also encourages the cells to stick together, forming clumps of different sizes. Although one might think tufts increase the viscosity, they actually have a lower total surface area relative to the individual cells, which reduces the friction. In addition, the mixture Clump sizes allows more cells to pack into the same volume, with small cells adjusted around the tall tufts and allowing more space for movement.
A mesh with the technique is that the blood flow is in the same direction as the magnetic field. The effect would be the same when a whole body is in a MRI apparatus, for example, because the blood vessels are moving in all directions. But Tao do not think that would be a problem. "There is no need to apply the magnetic field to the entire body," he says. "In fact, we just need to apply the magnetic field at the local level, for example, applying the magnetic field parallel to an artery." By an artery in the area for a few minutes, he said, would transmit the bloodstream the effect to the entire body. Tao hopes that, with refinement, the technique will allow patients who are not hospital related to check in only twice a day clinic for treatment, keep their blood viscosity permanently.
Mehmet toner, a medical engineer at Harvard medical School in Boston, called the results "very intriguing," and think they could be important if they are repeated within the body. researchers need to do "a lot more work to prove that the magnetic field can reduce the viscosity of blood under physiological conditions, and do it in a useful way for clinical applications," he said.
Tao and Huang currently designing a magnet in which patients could insert an arm or leg easily. They are also the development of the technology to measure the viscosity of blood at multiple locations within an artery. "Then we'll work with some doctors in our medical school for clinical trials," says Tao.
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