If someone told you they were getting a kidney transplant, you might think they would need to stay in the hospital for at least a few days afterward. You might also think that they will be asleep during the procedure. A 28-year-old man from Chicago just went against both of those trends by getting a kidney transplant while he was awake and then leaving the hospital the next day.

This is a very strange case, and it’s the first one for Northwestern Medicine. It has been done before with local anesthesia during kidney transplants, but it is still the norm to have the surgery while under general anesthesia. You might not like the thought of knowing what’s going on while surgeons put in a new kidney, but there are a lot of good things that could come from it.

Anesthesiologist Vicente Garcia Tomas, MD, said in a statement, “It was easier to give anesthesia for the awake kidney transplant than for many C-sections.”

“We hope that awake kidney transplantation can cut down on some of the risks of general anesthesia and cut down on the time a patient has to stay in the hospital.” It was amazing to be able to show a patient what their new kidney would look like in the operating room before putting it in their body, said transplant surgeon Satish Nadig, MD, PhD.

John Nicholas was the patient in question. He first had kidney problems when he was 16 years old, after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease earlier. No one could figure out why his kidneys were inflamed, but it became clear over time that he would need a transplant, even with medicine.

He also had to find a donor, but luckily, his best friend from childhood, Pat Wise, was ready to help.

John sent me a message that said, “My doctor says it’s time for me to start looking for kidney donors.” I was cooking dinner at the time. “That night, I stared at my phone and filled out the form right away,” Wise remembered. “John is a good friend.” His kidney was broken, but I had an extra one. I had to look into the possibility of being his donor, at least.

The surgery took place on May 24, 2024, after Wise was found to be a match.

“In John’s case, we gave him a spinal anesthesia shot in the operating room along with some sedation to make him feel better,” Garcia Tomas said. “It was very easy and didn’t cause any problems, but John was awake during the procedure, which made it better for the patient.” Awake kidney transplantation can help people who are afraid of or have concerns about general anesthesia. It can also help them stay out of the hospital longer so they can recover more comfortably at home.

Nicholas, for his part, thought the procedure was great. He talked about how the local anesthetic made the procedure painless even though he knew what the surgeons were doing. “It was pretty cool to know what was happening in real time and be aware of the magnitude of what they were doing,” he said.

Nicholas got out of the hospital the very next day. At the same hospital, a typical kidney transplant patient would need to stay in the hospital for two to three days.

The procedure’s success makes it more likely that this approach will be used in more difficult situations, like when the patient can’t go under general anesthesia for other medical reasons. The transplantation field now has another tool in its belt, Nadig said. “It really opens up a whole new door.”

Nicholas has been doing well since the surgery and thanked Wise for helping him out when his mother, who was supposed to be his donor, got sick and couldn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m lucky to have friends who have been together since I was a kid.” We’ve always said that we are “ride or die” friends, and this shows that we look out for each other. It really meant a lot to me. It has really changed my life.

An ancient wolf that has been frozen like a popsicle for more than 44,000 years has been analyzed by scientists in Russia. The results will give us a lot of information about how it lived as a top predator during the Ice Age.

Over 40 meters (131 feet) of permanent ice covered the Tirekhtyakh River in the Abyysky District in the Far East of Russia in 2021. This is where the wolf was found.

The body was taken to the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Since then, scientists from the Mammoth Museum of the North-Eastern Federal University and the European University at Saint Petersburg have been busy examining it.

Under clean conditions, the team cut open the body and took samples of the organs inside as well as the food that went through the digestive system. The germs in a wolf’s gut might help us figure out what it eats and how healthy it is.

“His stomach has been kept in a pure form, with no other substances present, so the job is not easy.” After the preparation, we hope to get a picture of the plants and animals that lived in the Pleistocene era. We have the chance to find out what it ate because it was a big, busy predator. Albert Protopopov, head of the department for the study of mammoth fauna at the Academy of Sciences of Yakutia, said in a statement, “The things that his victims ate also ended up in his stomach.”

“Also, we chose one premolar tooth to figure out how old the find was biologically.” We can tell that this is an adult male because the teeth are worn down and the sagittal ridge has grown, said Maxim Cheprasov, who is in charge of the lab at the North-Eastern Federal University Mammoth Museum.

Researchers are hopeful that some of the germs that live inside the animal might still be alive after being frozen in a state similar to hibernation for tens of thousands of years at temperatures below zero. We might even be able to use them to help with science today if they have survived.

“Working with the NEFU Mammoth Museum on science projects has helped us learn more about the bacteria that lived in the mammoth steppe during the Pleistocene period.” Expert in the study of diseases and infections at North-Western State Medical University, Artemy Goncharov, said, “We see that living bacteria can survive in fossil animal finds for thousands of years, which are a kind of witnesses of those ancient times.”

“We are hoping for good results that will help us learn a little more about what ancient microbial communities were, what they did, and how many dangerous pathogenic bacteria were in their structure. “Maybe microorganisms will be found that can be used in medicine and biotechnology as promising sources of substances that have biological activity,” Goncharov said.

The North-Eastern Federal University also has another interesting specimen. They just bought a frozen wolf from the Nizhnekolymsk area of Yakutia, Siberia, and they plan to start studying it as soon as they finish studying this one.

This part of the world has a lot of permafrost, which is a layer of forever frozen soil below the Earth’s surface. It is perfect for storing and preserving living things from the Ice Age. In recent years, a wide range of ancient animals, including a 49,000-year-old bird and a beautifully kept puppy named “Dogor,” have been found in this very cold part of Siberia.

If you don’t want to drink a bunch of chemicals that could be harmful, keep your water bottle out of the sun. Plastic water bottles that are left out in the sun break down and release many different types of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

VOCs are chemicals that evaporate quickly at room temperature. They are found in a lot of different products, like paints, cleaners, fuels, and solvents. They’re also made of plastic, like those used to make water bottles and food trucks. Many of them are safe, but some may be bad for your health in the short and long term.

In the most recent study, UV-A light and sunlight were used to test six different kinds of plastic water bottles in China. They discovered that this process let out a wide range of VOCs, such as acids, alcohols, aldehydes, and alkanes.

Some signs pointed to “highly toxic” VOCs, such as n-hexadecane, which is known to cause cancer.

A single sip of contaminated water doesn’t pose much of a health risk, but the researchers found that long-term exposure may pose a greater risk.

“Our results are strong proof that plastic bottles can release harmful chemicals into the air when they are exposed to sunlight.” “Consumers need to be aware of these risks, especially in places where bottled water is left out in the sun for long periods of time,” said Dr. Huase Ou, lead researcher from China’s Jinan University’s Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Health.

However, the researchers were quick to point out that the risk seems to be pretty low since the bottle only releases a small amount of chemicals.

“Given that a container weighs about 20 grams on average, the VOCs that were released from a single container were only a few nanograms.” So, even after long-term exposure, opening a bottle and drinking water from it doesn’t pose many health risks to people, the study’s authors write in the conclusion.

The bottles in the study were all made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is one of the most common types of plastic. However, the VOC composition and concentration of the different bottles were very different. The different production methods and additives seem to have something to do with this.

Most likely, the chemicals leaked out of the bottle because of a process called photodegradation. This is when light breaks down the structure of the plastic.

There are more things than just sunlight that you should think about when it comes to your plastic bottle’s “health.” A study from the past found that leaving water in a plastic bottle for just one day could let hundreds of chemicals get into your drink. Several of these chemicals are thought to be harmful to health, such as those that cause cancer or mess with the hormone system (endocrine disruptors).

In the same way, there is some evidence that heating plastic bottles might not be a good idea. A study done in 2020 found that the sterilization process recommended by the World Health Organization put between 1.3 and 16.2 million microplastic particles per liter into child bottles.

In the 21st century, plastic is found everywhere, from penises to ice in Antarctica. It was once thought to be mostly harmless, but it’s becoming clearer that it’s having a bad effect on us and the planet, and we’re only just beginning to understand how bad it is.

The study was published in the magazine Eco-Environment & Health.