Would You Believe You Might Be Able to Breathe Through Your Butt?

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Don't get ahead of me here and start allowing the "butt breath" jokes fly, but at some point I'm sure that's exactly where your mind will wander.

When you've seen a headline like this, you almost certainly can't take it seriously, but indeed, there is growing proof that human beings might actually have the ability to breathe through their anus. (Side joke; yes, that would be Ur-Anus)

Okay, here come those butt breath jokes.

Seriously, a group of scientists in Japan are studying this very idea, and with good reason.

The Japan Times reports:

Intrigued by how certain sea creatures breathe through their intestines in emergencies, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University were able to prove the same was true under experimental circumstances for mice, rats and pigs, publishing their findings in the journal Med on Friday.

Would you have ever dreamed there was actual medical value to this thought process?

What the scientists discovered was that some species of fish, in order to stay alive in emergencies, can absorb oxygen through their intestines.

Wondering if mammals possessed the same ability, the Japanese scientists found that indeed, mammals have blood vessels in their rectums that work in apparently the same way.

The scientists have successfully tested the process on mice, pigs and rats after giving them oxygen enemas. They have yet to test this on humans but are very confident it will work allowing medical emergency treatments when patients can't get enough oxygen in the traditional form.  They also suggest this practice could prove effective anytime there is a shortage of ventilators like we recently saw in the height of the COVID pandemic.

Researchers say this research should be taken seriously, and they are right.

However, it can't come without the occasional butt breath joke.