Student Persuasive Essay "From Death to Life"

What if our idea of restarting a person’s heart was completely wrong? What if thousands of lives could be saved by altering a simple phase of the resuscitation process? Doctors everywhere use the same techniques to restart a heart. However, new evidence shows that the way we go about restarting them may actually be causing people to die faster.

Generally, after a person dies, resuscitation occurs. For example, a person who suffered from cardiac arrest brought to the emergency room would likely receive three things before anything else: oxygen, epinephrine, and a jolt from a defibrillator. The oxygen is suppose to keep the brain stimulated and the cells alive, while the epinephrine and the defibrillator attempt to force the heart to restart (Adler ¶ 5). Patients who receive treatment early are much more likely to live, as opposed to those who are without oxygen for an extended period of time. The idea behind early resuscitation success is that the brain still has enough oxygen to return to normal function.

Clinical death is when a person’s heart stops beating and respiration ceases. Early medicine considered the lack of a pulse to be clinical death. Today, we rely on electrocardiograms (EKGs), which measure the hearts activity, and electromyography machines (EMGs), which measures the contractions of muscles, to register when death has taken place. Our perception of when death occurs changes as our technology increases, and our abilities to resuscitate people become more refined.

University of Pennsylvania professor, Dr. Lance Becker, took the term “clinical death” to a new level. Dr. Becker’s research focuses primarily on oxygen supply to cells after a person has stopped respiration. According to his research, one hour without oxygen generally sees 4% of cells throughout the body die. The percentage increase of cellular death throughout the body stays constant for at least four hours. Stunningly, Dr. Becker’s research has shown that after introducing oxygen back into the body, cellular death skyrockets to 60% (New ¶ 8). Essentially, when a person’s respiration ceases, his or her cellular death rate is relatively low. However, when we re-supply oxygen into the body, also called reperfusion, the cells die off fifteen times faster than they do at a normal rate. For some ironic reason, oxygen, one of the three basic steps of resuscitation, seems to bring about death faster.

Initial research has a theory to why cells die so quickly after being reperfused, and it goes all the way to the molecular level. “Mitochondria are rod-shaped organelles that can be considered the power generators of the cell, converting oxygen and nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP)” (Davidson ¶ 1). In essence, mitochondria, a basic part of a human cell, processes oxygen into ATP, which is the most basic chemical that the body needs to function.

Mitochondria controls apoptosis as well. Apoptosis is a normal aspect of cells that involves the suicidal killing of itself in reaction to surrounding cells. It is generally a defense mechanism against things such as cancer (Browder and Iten ¶ 1). Early research by Dr. Becker has indicated that the mitochondria are recognizing the reperfused cells as cancer cells. I believe that the confusion occurs because of the similarities between cancer cells and newly reperfused cells. Re-oxygenated cells may appear to be new cells because of the influx of oxygen into their system, which causes them to grow to a larger size. Confusing them with fast growing cancer cells, the normal cells react with apoptosis. Because our current resuscitation techniques involve reperfusion, we are causing the cells to kill themselves, and thus we are killing the patients faster.

In order to save more lives, we need to change how we resuscitate people. Research suggests that cooling the body after respiration has ceased can help to save lives. For some unknown reason, the cooling effect causes the cells to die off slower than the average rate, allowing for more time for the person to be saved. One way researchers are trying to cool the body is with injections of slurry, which is a salt and ice crystal mixture (New ¶ 10). It was previously thought that cooling of the body, or inducing hypothermia, would slow the metabolism, which would help to restart the heart. Researchers did not understand, however, how the body could get by without oxygen (Davis ¶ 7). Now, it only seems logical that the cooling effect works because it decreases the amount of oxygen. Unknowingly, doctors would induce hypothermia in order to slow the body’s metabolism, but instead they would prevent apoptosis. The cooling would allow the body’s cells to live longer, and give the patient a better chance to live.

Another possible way to help save someone is to use blood infusion. Rather than reinserting pure oxygen back into the system, allow for blood to circulate throughout the body while on a ventilator (Adler ¶ 6). The oxygen from the blood received through the ventilator should be enough to keep the cells alive, while not inducing apoptosis. It also would allow for circulation to continue which may help the heart to stay in rhythm.

Based on Dr. Becker’s research, clinical death no longer depends on when the heart stops and respiration ceases. Clinical death occurs when the cells in the body have died. A person’s body may be considered dead, but not the cells within. If we can keep a patient’s cells alive for longer periods of time, there is a better chance that the person will live. Who knows how many people have died in the emergency room because oxygen was re-introduced into the body too quickly. Based on the newfound evidence, our current idea of how to restart a heart is outdated. Saving lives is an incredibly complex process, but new technology is giving us the opportunity to become more proficient.

English Composition I Student Persuasive Essay #2

From Death to Life

English Composition I
Student Persuasive Essay #2