Is it true that anesthesia takes five years of life?

It is common that each anesthesia takes five years of life from a person. We decided to check if this is confirmed by scientific research.

Information about such a harm can be found on many sites And forums. The same question Patients regularly Set doctors. The prevalence of this belief is also evidenced by folk art, in particular common Anecdote: “The patient before the operation asks an anesthetist:“ Is it true that anesthesia takes five years of life from the patient and gives them to an anesthesiologist? ” The anesthetist replies: "I have been living for 140 years, but I have been heard about this for the first time."

In everyday life, anesthesia is often called anesthesia - for example, they say “treating teeth under anesthesia”, while referring to local anesthesia. At the same time anesthesia - This is an artificial reversible state of oppression of the central nervous system, in which there is a dream, loss of consciousness, relaxation of skeletal muscles, a decrease or disconnection of some reflexes, and pain sensitivity disappears. That is, under anesthesia, a person sleeps conditionally, and under a different type of anesthesia remains conscious. Many are faced with local (regional) anesthesia - during the treatment and implantation of tooth or laser vision correction. To regional anesthesia also refers Epidural anesthesia, which allows the patient in the mind to conduct a cesarean section or anesthetize childbirth. Under regional anesthesia in some cases Maybe Appendicitis removal is also carried out. Patient has The right to choose an anesthesia method in those situations where there are various options. 

There is also another type of technology that allows you to carry out operations - Sedation. With some types of sedation, the patient remains conscious, breathes independently, can perform simple team commands, but at the same time calm and relaxed, is in a drowsy state and, with a high degree of probability, will not remember what is happening in details.

Since in most statements we are talking only about anesthesia as such, in the text we will only consider its influence on life expectancy. To begin with, we turn to ordinary logic. The idea that anesthesia takes a person from a person five years of life implies that it is known in advance how much a person will live. However, such a figure, even having carried out all the latest diagnostic procedures, cannot be withdrawn. Various screening can help diagnose diseases in an early stage or determine those to which a person is more inclined by virtue of family history or lifestyle. For example, in a situation where the older relatives of the woman died of breast cancer, the doctor may suspect mutation In the genes of BRCA1 and BRCA2 and offer appropriate observation or even preventive surgery, but he will not be able to calculate the age of the death of this woman.

The second argument against such a belief is also built on logic. Some people voluntarily tolerate a huge amount of plastic surgery (for example that some of them were not under anesthesia, but under local anesthesia). For example, American Cindy Jackson, Entered In the Guinness Book, she transferred 47 cosmetic procedures, 14 of which were plastic surgery, which means they demanded anesthesia. We calculate: if every anesthesia took her five years of life, in total she had to “lose” 70 years. In 2022 to her Filled 66 years. That is, in total without operations, it should have lived for 136 years and re -enter the Guinness Book, having broken previous Long -live record (122 years).

Also long-liver record holders should have turned out to be stars. For example, singer Cher, according to the calculations of foreign journalists, Transferred At least 60 operations (it itself denies this number). That is, anesthesia would have taken from her as many as 300 years, that with her current age, at 76 years, all conceivable and unimaginable records are beating!

It is interesting in the context of such a belief about anesthesia to consider the prospects of surgical intervention in the elderly. According to the logic of allegations of anesthesia who takes away the years of life, those of them who were allocated to live after the operation for less than five years should die on the operating table and not leave anesthesia. Even, apparently, in the event that the cause of their death was to be, for example, a car accident “planned” a year after the operation under anesthesia.

Scientific data also refute the relationship of anesthesia with a reduction in life. In people of comparative studies, they did not conduct due to their inections, but there are experiments on animals. Researchers from Harvard Medical School Divided 16 rats aged 22 months (average age life Animals are two, two and a half years) for two groups: they gave anesthesia for two hours, the other did not receive anesthesia. The rats from the control group lived on average another 140 days (about four and a half months), and the rats that have suffered anesthesia - 158 days (a little more than five months). 

Scientists even noted "a tendency to increase the life expectancy of rats, which was previously anesthetized." Researchers also noted: individual observations demonstrate that people who have undergone anesthesia in old age really often die before their peers. However, conclusions on the basis of them about the dangers of anesthesia cannot be drawn. After all, these people were under anesthesia not for the study of its effects, but because of the appropriate pathologies of health, which, apparently, became the reason that they died before their peers.

Moreover, in most cases, with the exception of, perhaps, only plastic surgery, anesthesia is given to the patient to conduct the necessary surgery and save their lives. For example, if you do not operate on a person who got into a serious accident, then in many cases he simply will not survive. Also operation under anesthesia for cancer patients Maybe Significantly extend life or improve its quality.

Thus, anesthesia itself, judging by animal experiments, does not take away years of life. Moreover, the belief of the elapsed years contradicts ordinary logic. However, those who underwent surgery can really die before their peers, but not because of anesthesia, but because of the disease that required surgery.

Image on the cover: Pixabay

Not true

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