Scientists Try To Decode How Hibernation Prevents Blood Clot In Bears

Bears can sleep for more than 100 days without eating, drinking, or passing waste materials or hibernation. Sleeping for that long may cause many health issues and can even turn fatal as well. Bears, however, face no such problems. hibernation in winter like many other hibernators, save themselves from a plethora of ailments that might affect them if they do not go into deep sleep. This can be a healthy cue for humans as well. Cardiologists like Ole Frobert have left no stone unturned to find how bears survive their long winter snooze without dying. They also aim to know whether humans can live longer if they learn to live like them. As reported in the Washington Post, Frobert and another cardiologist named Manuela Thienel teamed up with bear researchers in Sweden. The team chased 13 bears by helicopter during the summer to collect their blood from the dens in winter. They discovered that the bear blood contains certain proteins, in particular, one called HSP47. According to a paper published earlier this year in the journal Science, this protein was slightly higher in bears in winter than in summer. It is the reason why these animals survive the winter.

HSP47 protein appears on the surface of platelets and helps blood cells stick together. When blood clots form after a cut, they stop the body from bleeding and help it heal. When blood, however, coagulates inside veins and doesn’t dissolve naturally, clots can be deadly. The cardiologists now wanted to see whether the HSP47 protein had the same effect in humans. To see this, the team turned to patients with spinal cord injuries. Those patients, like hibernating bears, don’t get a lot of blood clots. It suggested that their bodies have found a way to decrease the presence of the HSP47 protein after the injury.

The team has found these patients have far less HSP47 than uninjured people. Now Frobert’s team is searching for a chemical to develop a new blood-thinning medicine. They aim that this medicine will have fewer adverse effects in comparison to the existing drugs. His team said that it might take five to ten years to form such a drug.