Introduction
Remember your childhood? Almost nothing has been in you from those times. By 35 years, your muscle has renewed already twice, bones three times, a skin more than 500 times. Our body has been constantly renewing, but we don't know pace of this process and which tissues are with us from birth to death.
Differences between men and mice
The case of blood is simple. We just need to take a blood transfusion and after few days take a sample to see how fast the cells are exchanged. Such studies have shown us that red cells live about three months. After that time they die and are replaced by new cells.
We know that similar process occurs in most body tissues. But what with muscle, bone and brain cells, how long they live? Case of animals is relatively simple. Animals get a marked radioactive nucleotides, which builds the DNA of living organism. They are included in the genetic material of cells. After some time, animals are killed and their tissues examined in order to check how many cells contain radioactive DNA fragments. In this way we can specify the number of cells that still alive from that moment.
This method is adequate for mice and cats but what about human beings? Results of test curried out on mice or even anthropoid cannot be directly compare to people because life expectancy and exchange rate of cells differs significantly. In addition, many animals have mechanism for the regeneration of the body, which man does not have. For example, rats can regenerate loss of nerve tissue. Knowledge of cell life span is not only scientific curiosity. Thanks to such information we can discover source of many diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes and cataract.
Q:
What do you think about animal experiments?
Could you sacrifice your body for scientific purposes?
L:
http://www.rotarysa.org/IMupload/birthday%20cake.jpg
http://medgadget.com/archives/2006/10/blt_mice.html
http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/3vw/ch04/figs/human-cross-section.jpg
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21719/page1/
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=198208§ioncode=26
I now that some animal experiments are very useful for medicine and so on but I declare to limit their pain and reduce the number of tests.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by asking: Could you sacrifice your body for scientific purposes? Do you mean after death or before? ;)
If I die in some kind of accident I could be a donor of organs for people in need.
Animal (mammal) experiments are needed because they are most similar "creatures" to human beings and I think it's the easiest method to determine if some medicine will have a change to work on humans.
ReplyDeleteIf by "scientific purposes" you mean tests on my body while I'm alive - I say no thank you. However the same as kniaz, I would have no problems with being a donor after my death.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would gladly give my body for scientific purposes. But this usually means ending under the knife of first year medicine students. I was a witness to a situation where two first year medicine students (both female) were discussing about cosmetic products while pulling out eye lashes from a 'large specimen'. And where is a glory to that?
ReplyDeleteI haven't thought about sacrificing my body for scientific purposes, maybe its for me too big issue. Maybe because of that I cannot look at blood and during thinking that sombodey cut some part of my body its diggling me.
ReplyDeleteAbout animals.... hmm... if there was no animal test we wouldn't heal so many diesases.
What do you think about animal experiments?
ReplyDeleteIMO it should be legal but strictly controlled.
Could you sacrifice your body for scientific purposes?
Well, the answer is simple. I could.
I believe that being for or against experiments done on the animals depends on the stand point we decide to take. On one hand those experiments might be absolutely necessary and very helpful to the human race. People believe that it is against our ethics to test things on humans, whereas it is alright to make experiments on animals, which according to many have no actual feelings or emotions. On the other hands we are not really able to prove how those experiments influence animals. One thing is sure; animals are used by scientists to test almost anything starting with serious things such as vaccines and medications, and ending on things such as hair products. In my opinion experiments on animals are cruel but necessary, therefore I would probably volunteer to have experiments done on my body. I would not let anyone experiment on me while I am still alive, but after I die…why not?
ReplyDeleteCould i sacrifice your body for scientific purposes? The answer is i could, but i also could win multilotek tomorrow or buy fiat 126p :P
ReplyDeleteSacrificing your body for scientific purposes can be a bit risky. You can wake up 15 years later and discover that you’re not a human, at least not entirely.
ReplyDelete