Hibernating Bears Could Help Human Rescues

WASHINGTON - Hibernating bears are loud snorers. They go many months without food, even sustaining pregnancies in their winter slumber. A sudden noise may rouse them, briefly, but they barely budge otherwise.

So it might come as a surprise that scientists are studying how the bears' bodies work during hibernation in order to help doctors rescue people in trauma situations.

"Hibernating bears function pretty much like a closed system, all they need is air," said Brian Barnes of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

By studying the bears' mastery of lowering their metabolic rate for five to seven months, researchers hope to find clues for saving the lives of people who suffer major medical traumas, like heart attacks or stroke.

Such traumas create "a problem of supply and demand. Your supply of oxygenated blood to your brain is quickly lowered but the demand stays high and you have to get to a hospital very quickly," Barnes said.

Bears also lost hardly any bone mass and only small amounts of muscle during hibernation.

"Though they are virtually immobile for five to six months, somehow they have tricked their tissue, their bones and muscle, to think that they are still doing work," said Barnes.

"So we are all very interested in finding out the molecular signals for that," he said. "The trick would be to find drugs that would emulate those same changes in humans."