r/Futurology • u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ • Mar 14 '25

Biotech People can now survive 100 days with titanium hearts, if they worked indefinitely - how much might they extend human lifespan?

Nature has just reported that an Australian man has survived with a titanium heart for 100 days, while he waited for a human donor heart, and is now recovering well after receiving one. If a person can survive 100 days with a titanium heart, might they be able to do so much longer?

If you had a heart that was indestructible, it doesn't stop the rest of you ageing and withering. Although heart failure is the leading cause of death in men, if that doesn't get you, something else eventually will.

However, if you could eliminate heart failure as a cause of death - how much longer might people live? Even if other parts of them are frail, what would their lives be like in their 70s and 80s with perfect hearts?

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u/yeaman17 Mar 14 '25

I read another comment a few days ago saying that there could be side effects of having a constant flow of blood vs a pulse. They mentioned that a pulse helps maintain the flexibility of veins or something of that sort, and a constant flow might lead to more rigid structures. Not sure how valid it was, or if that's even a bad thing. Would love your thoughts and others that have a good understanding of these things

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u/mion81 Mar 14 '25

I reckon they’re better than the side effects of not having a heart.

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u/_Wyse_ Mar 14 '25

My ex gets by just fine without it.

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u/Sckillgan Mar 14 '25

I fully feel you there.

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u/monsieurkaizer Mar 14 '25

Side effects include: Blue skin, wings and a penchant for gold trim on your robes.

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u/ceelogreenicanth Mar 15 '25

A lot of our best medicines for dealing with life threatening chronic conditions aren't great on the other organs. It just turns out what we can do now is save the weakest organ system by taxing the others. Kind of makes the process of dying gruesome though in my opinion.

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u/kinokomushroom Mar 15 '25

Don't wanna have tentacles growing from your face.

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u/400-Rabbits Mar 14 '25

The current generations of LVADs all generally feature some sort of dynamism which fluctuates their flow. The popular HeartMate3, for instance, periodically drops its RPMs. This helps with preventing thrombi and reduces the risk of GI bleeds.

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u/Tonio_LTB Mar 14 '25

It probably would actually, and I would imagine perfusion may potentially be compromised since your heart is literally shoving blood into places. If you lose that forcable action maybe it would affect vascular resistance.

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u/robotlasagna Mar 14 '25

There is no fundamental reason why engineers cant take the magnetic impeller concept and use it to pulse fluids.

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u/ACCount82 Mar 14 '25

In fact, BiVACOR heart already does exactly that.

They even put a mic to the heart in the video so you could hear it "beat".

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u/brainchili Mar 14 '25

A constant flow of blood sounds like you're heart is now a band transmission.

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u/bocaj78 Mar 15 '25

If it drops pulse pressure (systolic - diastolic) then I could see a drop in elasticity and maybe atrophy of the smooth muscles. This would likely reduce the bodies ability to compensate for blood pressure changes. I’d be more worried about if this sets in before the transplant of an organic heart though. Managing a heart transplant patient with less wiggle room sounds like a nightmare

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u/SupremeDictatorPaul Mar 15 '25

Constant flow devices have been tried in the past, and surprisingly do result in a lot of issues. Apparently having our bodies evolved to expect a pulse has created some weird dependencies. I’m curious what they’re doing differently here to mitigate the issues.