Hi guys, haven't posted in a while as there's been loads going on. Broke up with the girlfriend, been on holiday, and a family member suffered a major heart-attack and has been in a critical state in hospital. A real mix of bad and good stuff then.
With the heart-attack her heart stopped pumping and she was medically dead for 10 minutes before the paramedics were able to restart it. She's now been left brain damaged as a result because parts of her brain effectively died through oxygen starvation. It's a horrible situation and pretty shocking considering she is only 52. She was my uncle's first wife, mother to 3 of my cousins.
I've been thinking back to my education in A-level biology and trying to explain A) what death is, and B) why we cannot simply restart hearts or 'dead' cells. Perhaps you can help me understand it and fill in the gaps.
My understanding is this, every cell in your body performs respiration using oxygen and glucose to stay 'alive' and active. The oxygen and the glucose are supplied to each cell in the blood which of course is pumped around the body by the heart. Simple stuff right? Every cell contains a nucleus with DNA plus a bunch of other organelles like mitochondria, centrioles, ribosomes and vacuoles. These organelles have different functions but in general they keep the cell working and allow it to divide/replicate either by mitosis (normal cells) or meiosis (sex cells).
If you starve a cell of its blood supply it stops to function. It 'dies'. If you stop providing electricity to a computer it shuts down. Fair enough.
However my question is this, if you re-start the blood supply why can't the cells continue to function again? What makes them 'dead'?
Surely 10 minutes is too short a time for the organelles within a cell to degrade?
I'm probably missing a really simple answer here so go easy on me!
Cheers