Potential treatment for DCS

I thought long and hard whether to post this here, but I wanted to share the information with everyone who might have an interest in the issue. The US NAVY has provided a couple of grants to a small company that has been developing a Blood Substitute which reportedly is capable of delivering a much higher level of O2 to the Body than real blood. The company's name is Synthetic Blood Internatinal and their stock symbol is SYBD. I recommend that you read up on the company and the progress that has been made by this company in their attempt to get this product to maket. In my opinion this is a product, if succesful will be capable of helping thousands of people each year(it treats much more than DCS) since O2 therapy is used in many treatments. Anyway since our community has a vested interest in the success of this product you may want to do some research on your own.

:)

Wow,

That sounds crazy! It seems as though it was not intended necessarily for DCS. And to be 100% honest, I don’t think I would want any synthetic blood in my body unless it was the difference between life and death. Really I would rather spend a few extra hours in the chamber than be injected with some synthetic product.

If this were successfully developed, think of what it would mean for bloodless surgery and for emergency fluid replacement after a trauma. Wow, amazing.

Go to sybd.com ... under news releases there is a video which in part discusses it's use in dcs prevention and treatment. Says the Navy has invested 3.5 million in research into this!

I learned about it at a Christmas Party from a guy whose son is a Neuro Surgeon. It is really quite impressive and sounds like something out of a sciece fiction movie. If the Double Blind tests are succesful and it makes it to market this stuff is going to be in every ambulance, ER, Field Hospital etc etc.

Still sounds scary to me, but I am NOT in the medical profession. If you want to know about locks, well I can help you with that. ;)

I don't know if it's the same product, I don't think so, but there was a study somewhere in europe where on even days medics out in the field would give normal IV saline and on odd days they would give a simular synthetic product. The synthetic did help a little inbut nothing amazing, there were also a few problems/concerns. It was really expensive, and it was a lot harder to store just at the right temp.

I have studied up on this quite a bit, but I am not familiar with the study conducted in Europe. This product may have been inspired or developed concurrently but those concerns you mention seem to have been rectified. The product has a long shelf life and can be stored at room temp. You should look at the link Sea Snake mentioned earlier at http://www.sybd.com/ go to the newsroom and watch the video that the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) did on the product, as well as read a couple of the articles.
I think this could possibly be a ground floor oportunity for some of us poor divers to invest in something that could directly benifit our Sport! :) If you have a few hundred $'s to gamble with you can buy a couple hundred shares from an online broker and hope the product makes it to market.

I can understand and appreciate the benfits of this, but what about atheletes using this for enhanced performances like we know some famous athletes have been accused of in the past. Surely if you can enhance our real blood with "doping" it's probably just as easy to use a synthetic product to do the same thing, especially if it became readily available.

yea but anything good can be exploited one way or another.

If I understand the info on the site correctly, the product is naturally removed by the body by exhalation within 24 hours. So an athlete would have to dope with it just before competing, and then wouldn't they fail blood screenings? *shrug*

Speaking purely from an investment standpoint, taking any sportsmanship issues aside, if it helps athletes then that would be another potential avenue for business and so make the company more likely to succeed. It would be up to the appropriate athletic authorities to decide whether or not it was against their rules and, if so, how to test for it etc.
Hmmm, may need to look at this a little closer. ;)