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Ellie Abraham
Dec 16, 2024
Researcher emerges after record-breaking 100 days underwater
Aljazeera / VideoElephant
A man who lived underwater for 100 days has revealed the staggering effects the experiment had on his body.
Dr Joe Dituri is a professor from the University of South Florida who made the decision to become the experiment and see what 100 days of living underwater would do to a human body. The environment is thought to be similar to that involved in long-term space travel.
On 1 March 2023, Dr Dituri, also known as Dr Deep Sea, began the “Neptune 100” challenge to live in an underwater habitat – a room at Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida – for 100 days.
The 100-square-foot room was 30 feet underwater and required him to scuba dive in order to reach it.
A statement at the time explained: “Part of the work will see a psychologist and a psychiatrist monitor the effects he experiences while in an environment similar to extended space travel.
“It’s an isolating confined extreme environment. And as humans, we really need to figure out how we're going to be living in that (environment) if we're going to expand our planet, if we're going to go interplanetary, if we're going to find all the cures that we need to find.”
And the challenge had some incredible effects on his body.
It is thought that Dr Dituri’s body actually became biologically younger, as he came out with longer telomeres – a structure on chromosomes sometimes linked with longevity.
He told Orlando-based WKMG News: “I'm 56 now. My extrinsic [biological] age was 44. When I got out of the water, my extrinsic age was 34.
“So, my telomeres lengthened. I actually got younger when I was under the water.”
In addition, there was a 50 per cent reduction in every inflammation marker in his blood tests.
But, one of the downsides of the experiment is that he became shorter in height.
@drjosephdituri I lost 3/4in of height while living undersea for 100 days!! At nearly 1.7x pressure, the physical strain quite literally shrunk me. The interesting solution? After months of stretching, my Zero G flight had the greatest impact on returning my height back to normal. This is due to the tension in a zero gravity environment. #drdituri #drdeepsea #science #scientist #research #researcher #zerog #zerogravity #aquanaut #astronaut #podcast
Speaking in a TikTok video, Dr Dituri explained: “In the 100-day undersea mission, we came across many, many good things. But the bad things that happened were, I just three-quarters of an inch.”
He explained that “aquanauts” are always in compression, experiencing up to seven times as much pressure as we do on the surface, which caused his body to become shorter.
However, his height returned back to normal once he was back on land.
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