[www.popsci.com]

"The continuous-flow heart solves the biggest problem with artificial hearts: longevity. One little turbine like the ones Cohn showed me has been running continuously in a lab for eight years and shows no sign of wearing out. Another advantage is that it runs on a battery no bigger than a videocassette. The patient can wear it in a kind of shoulder holster—cumbersome, but not as bad as sitting day and night beside a hissing compressor the size of a dishwasher."

This was fascinating to read and adroitly written.


I admit, though, that the persistent focus on treatment rather than prevention continues to distress me. The remark toward the end that they'll be able to pop the perfected device into 100,000 people every year had me going, "100,000 people every year will need this device? How is this a GOOD thing, doc?"

Thanks for posting, Panchito

Tamukha Wrote:
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> I admit, though, that the persistent focus on
> treatment rather than prevention continues to
> distress me.

nobody can prevent decay and death, only postpone it. At one time or another, many raw foodists will benefit from these advances too.

Panchito,

These predicted patients aren't heart-failure-from-wear-and-tear patients. The predicted number isn't based on congenital heart defect patients, or other abnormal pathologies. It is based on people's hearts failing because they don't take care of them; most heart failure patients today are in this category: their disease is entirely preventable, medicine just doesn't focus on this. Indeed, these surgeons' bread and butter is that Americans, especially, will continue to kill their hearts with bad lifestyles. That's not what medicine is supposed to be. This innovation will be a boon for people whose hearts are failing for reasons beyond their control, sure. But medicine should be promoting the prevention of heart disease for everyone else.

As for what your other statement implies, when my heart wears out from long living, that's Nature's way of removing me for another organism to take my place. I will not fight that process artificially.

I've heard a heart specialist refer to heart disease as a "paper tiger", as in it's got no real teeth. Heart disease is entirely preventable via healthy diet and lifestyle.

Most people live by habbits. Some get a lot of cavities (preventable) and the dentist make lots of dough with them. Hope compasion doesn't dry out.

Nobody knows for sure what a person would choose when confronting death.

Panchito,

Quote

Nobody knows for sure what a person would choose when confronting death.

This is true. But I would hope that each of us knows what we ourselves would do when confronted by natural death from long life. I do; I'd look forward to the next world