Can Freezing your body will make you live forever?(cryonics)

Can Freezing your body will make you live forever?(Cryonics)

Cap america in ice

Hey everyone,

             I m back with a really cool topic like literally cool, which is can you live forever by freezing your body? (yeah just like captain america). It is really possible to do so not now but maybe in future. Now lets learn the science behind it.

Before preserving bodies we should first know what it is. The practice of preserving bodies at extremely low temperatures with the hope of reviving later is known as Cryonics. Don't confuse it with cryogenics.

Idea of Cryonics:

 The aim with cryonics is that it would keep a person under cryonic suspension until science of future found a way to get that person back to life. Theoretically if the cells of that person were not damaged then they can be resuscitated sometime in the future.

Now how to make this process work?

First, when a person is announced dead. The body of the person must be stabilized by supplying the brain with oxygen and blood. The body is then packed with ice and injected with anti coagulant to keep the blood from clotting during the travel to the cryonics facility. Then the body's water is replaced with a cryoprotectant basically a human anti-freeze to prevent the formation of ice crystals on the organs and tissues, after the body is put into suspended animation by a process called vitrification.

Once, the water is replaced the body is then further cooled in a large metal container, a metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen around -196 degrees Celsius completing the process.(getting shivers already).

Problems in this process:

Some scientists believe that this process is alone not enough to preserve the body. But assuming the person is successfully preserved in some day at future we can revive the body with full consciousness. This is based on the fact that certain roundworms retained behaviors they learned before they were cryopreserved after they were vitrified and revived.

Another study showed that sheep ovaries could be cryopreserved and may still work, after being transplanted into a cute little ball of wool, even after analysed 6 years later.

Both these studies are not same as cryopreserving a human body, but they give us hope about the possibility of the operation. We humans have succeeded in preserving almost every types of cells using cryonics. This may be small but a significant step towards human cryonics.

So far what we know on cryogenics process:

1. The temperature required for cryonics is -196 degree Celsius.  
2. The cryonics procedure should start within 2 mins after the heart has stopped.
3.  $ 160,000 minimum insurance policy required for whole body preservation and $63000 minimum insurance required for preserving head alone.
4. As bizarre as it sounds more than 200 bodies are stored like this around the world.

Fact Flash:

A chilling fact -Lowest temperature ever survived by a human with accidental hypothermia is 13.7 degree Celsius.(normal body temperature is 37 degree Celsius.) Cool right..? lol.

I guess this blog was helpful in understanding possibilities of cryonics. If you have any doubts regarding the concepts explained feel free to leave a comment..!

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