Joseph has been living in a 100-square-foot pod.
Joseph Dituri, the man who is living underwater, says he feels quite young and there is a scientific reason for that.In a strange occurrence, a scientist who is said to have stayed 93 days underwater, claims it has made him “10 years younger”.
Joseph Dituri, a professor at the University of South Florida, reportedly lives inside a 100 sqft pod below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
He aims to examine the effects of living in a pressurized environment on the human body for a study group research. While doing so, Joseph has already broken the world record for living underwater. He plans to complete 100 days.
The medical examiners measured and noticed the vitals and telomeres levels in the professor’s body, as per Daily Mail. It is suggested that telomeres, the DNA sequences attached to the end of the chromosomes, reduce as humans age. However, in Joseph’s case, they were observed to be 20% longer than the recorded measurements prior to his submersion. The report also claims that the scientist now has 10 times more stem cells in his body than at the start of the research.
A few more staggering changes noticed were that Joseph now gets 60-66% deep REM sleep at night, the phase in which most dreams occur. In addition to this, there was also a 72-point drop in the cholesterol level of his body, and his inflammatory markers were reduced by half.
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The changes that are being credited to the highly-pressurized environment are said to have positive effects on the body. Notably, the scientist stayed inside a similar chamber that astronauts use during space travel. During his time below the waves, Joseph reportedly worked out for an hour every five days. He only used exercise bands as his gyming equipment.
The man is shocked to see that he still has the mass that he developed underneath the ocean. “I am still maintaining the mass that I have, which is insane. My metabolism has increased, so my body has become leaner, and even though my muscle mass has not changed [since I was on the surface], I am still leaner than I was,” he said.
The stem cells, which are known to have a reversing effect on ageing, have multiplied by 10 in his body. Joseph Dituri went underwater back in March. The previous world record for staying underwater was noted to be 73 days.
A man of science locked himself in a 592-square-foot underwater research station for 100 days to document the effects of pressurization on the human body.
Now, having emerged from his submerged experiment, scientists studying those effects have discovered a shocking change in the man’s body—he’s 10 years younger.
The man, Joe Dituri, a former US Navy diver and expert in biomedical engineering, had experienced a 20% growth in the lengths of his telomeres.
Without explaining the complex biology of the aging process, one of its hallmarks is the shortening of telomeres, which are found on the ends of strands of DNA and act a little like the fused plastic ring around the end of a shoelace—it keeps the fabric from splitting apart.
Telomeres shorten as we age, exposing the DNA to damage, and many longevity programs today focus on halting that loss.
Another major factor was likely his body’s natural stem cell count—which grew 1,000% higher from before he went under. He experienced a 60% increase in the duration of deep sleep, the truly restorative state of sleep we all need to maintain our health that typically makes up around 90 minutes of our sleep cycle.
Altogther it served to reduce his biological age clock by about 10 years.
As Science Alert reported, before going under Dituri was focused more on what negative effects would befall him under the sea, such as a reduced exposure to vitamin D, losses of bone and muscle mass, and a reimergence of already-beaten viruses due to a weakened immune system.
However, pressure, such as is found within a therapeutic hyperbaric oxygen chamber, has been shown to have several benefits which living under the pressure of the waves seems to have replicated.
“You need one of these places that is cut off from outside activity,” Dituri told British media about his experience. “Send people down here for a two-week vacation, where they get their feet scrubbed, relax and can experience the benefit of hyperbaric medicine.”
In the pod, he used exercise bands to complete around an hour of fitness work five days a week. This was probably substituted or supplemented by swimming, as he could go for a dive whenever he felt like it