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I was watching a video blog report from a Kazakh village. It's in Russian and Polish describing a village and an abandon post-soviet town near an abandoned uranium mine. The vlogers interviewed an old uranium mining engineer, living besides the closed down uranium mine, saying (at 20m in the video) that "uranium is very healthy", he is 78y but was looking as if he were 60. He was saying all people, all his coworkers who retired and left the village are all dead!. Similarily, he said that of all people who were resettled from Chernobyl, many have died after just 4 years but those who remeined are alive!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlNXsMXct0M
Another woman said the same "Uranium is very healthy for the people liiving here". This old mining engineer said to the vloggers: "just stay here for 3 days and you will feel mych healthier and stronger!" He also said that all those who moved or were resettled to the cities are all dead! That was not the main subject, the purpose of the two young vloggers virsiting the old mining village was the mysterious sleeping epidemics that took place there. The epidemics only affected the village but not the nearby mining town.
Xenon dissolves hundred times more in fatty tissue than in water. That one person - a baker lady who was quite fat. I suspect (but have no evidence!) that those who suffered from sleeping episodes were obese people!
63 people out of the total village of ~700 fell ill. Each sleeping episode lasted a month. After about 1-2 years it went away.
The mining engineer thinks it was some gas from the mining ventillation shafts. The mine was disused at that time and flooded, he thinks that floodwater may have displaced and pushed gas. Strangely, it affected only the people not animals.
None reported any lasting problems. They talked to a baker woman who experienced it but looked healthy (overweight!) and didn't complain on anything.
One gas which can cause those symptoms (i.e. narcosis ) without any other side effects is Xenon and/or Krypton. They could be used as anastetics but are very expensive, better than Nitrous Oxide. Both are known daughterproducts of Uranium. Some people are probably accumulating those gases. They are not completely inert and can form clathrates.
Some alternative medical clinics/spa offer Xenon inhalations as therapy:
https://www.xenonclinic.com/en/effects-of-xenon-inhalation/
Xenon dissolves weakly in water but strongly in fats, which may explain its stronger effect on humans than animals (human brain contains mostly fat and is proportionally much bigger than in animals) and that it affects obese people more than thin.
This paper reports minimal effects on rabbits but more noticeable on humans!
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/113/2942/580
It is actually possible that the people in the village were soaked in Xenon (and/ perhaps also Krypton) emanated from the abandoned Uranium mine, and some people (perhaps those who carried more body fat) reacted more than the other. More sensitive. It is also interesting that the narcolepsia cases occured throughout the autumn and winter as the people started losing body fat releasing fat-dissolved Xenon back into their body tissues.
They didn't went completely comatose, just extreme lethargy.
It could also explain a complete lack of toxicity, and lasting after effects, like for example happems with the CO and CO2 poissoning, or with hydrocarbons. Also hydrocarbons are smelly, while there nobody smelled anything! Noble gasses are odorless.
This paper is interesting: http://www.biomed.cas.cz/physiolres/pdf/56%20Suppl%201/56_S39.pdf
Quote:
The experiments show that besides anesthetic characteristics, xenon also has organ protective effect on heart and brain. The mechanism of this influence has not been sufficiently explained yet. According to a theory, brain damage after hypoxic/ischemic insult is caused by neuron apoptosis, which is influenced by the activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. It was demonstrated that xenon blocks this receptor. Therefore, xenon seems to be used for example in neonatal asphyxia (David 2003). After experimental occlusion of coronary artery performed in xenon anesthesia, quicker recovery of heart was demonstrated in comparison with total intravenous anesthesia (Hartlage 2004).
So xenon also -should- protect agains glutamate cascade caused by stress, which may explains its therapeuting effect by that Russian company using xenon inhalation therapy!
Xenon is expensive but not hugely expensive and it can be in practice, recirculated.
Xenon would work better, at least as admixture because of its neuro and cardio-protection!Heart surgery using Xenon as anesthetics produce no neurological deterioration, which is veru common follwing the standard cardiac surgeryThere was a paper I spotted.
Xenon is expensive but not prohibitively expensive and can be recirculated in a hospital setup using closed-system breathing apparatus. It could be a few % mixture only with the rest being He or N. I saw Xe pricing quoted of the order of 1eu/L.
It's interesting to notice how all the little snippets of this story fall together?
The mechainsm could have been that of gradual absorption and then more rapid internal release. Those episode all begun late autumn early winter and ceased in the spring! Late fall is when temperature in Kazakhstan , in the open steppes fall rapidly down to -40C!
So people begin suddenly lose their fat in the winter, suddenly releasing fat-dissolved Xenon gas.
[PROVISIONAL EDIT. - TODO: RE-EDIT AND FINISH]
2 comments :
Not sure I subscribe to the idea that Uranium is actually healthy. I buy into the idea of radiation hormesis, i.e. some ionizing radiation being stimulating and healthy. But I draw the line at ingestion or inhalation of instable isotopes. So maybe Uranium is healthy - if you leave it in the ground rather than scatter it in a messy mining operation.
Back to topic, thanks for pointing out the Xenon angle. I was very surprised to learn (and then verify) its use as an anesthetic and its neuroprotective effects. Mind boggling, since it is is a noble gas which shouldn't do much of anything.
I really don't see why it should be stored in fat tissue but haven't yet followed up your links. In my day job, we worry a lot about diffusion of Hydrogen and the lighter noble gases. They are hard to stop by anything. A larger atom should diffuse more slowly but since it doesn't react, how can it be retained by any kind of tissue?
Hi Eric,
Xenon form clathrates with water and thus it modifies the reactivity of water molecules. That's just a theory (or you can call it an "educated guess"). I came recently across some commercially sold devices that modify water reactivity properties through microturbulence/microcavitation. It makes water less biologically active, for example it reduces the deposition of biofilms on water pipes and tanks in agricultural installations. I have seen the official but unpublished reports (private communication) so it is credible enough (for me).
When I researched it further there is a small number of studies researching the spin polarity states of water and this is also fascinating. I deals with the total spin orientation between O and two H atoms. There is Ortho-water (H up - O down - H up) and para-water (H up - O - H down), normally the thermal equilibrius is 75% ortho and 25% para water.
Para-water (H_up - O - H_down) has = 25% higher reactivity!
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-chemistry-isomers.html
Once separated, excess or deficit of para can persist for hours in room temperature.
You can alter the ortho to para balance by catalysts, or other means that has not yet been well research. Para and Ortho molecules have slightly different properties affecting water pseudo-micro-crystallite structure.
Xenon may act similarly by altering molecular properties and modifying its biological availability, as well diffusion rate.
It's a good subject for somebody's PhD.
Stan
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