The Bioengineer web site (and many other news orgs) brings news about the project that won the 2024 Ig Nobel Physiology Prize. That prize was awarded to Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.
The team documented that research, in the study “Mammalian Enteral Ventilation Ameliorates Respiratory Failure,” Med, vol. 2, June 11, 2021, pp. 773-783.
Bioengineer writes, on October 20, 2025 about their subsequent work:
Ig Nobel ‘Butt Breathing’ Concept from 2024 Advances Toward Viable Medical Treatment
In a medical breakthrough that sounds more like science fiction than reality, researchers have successfully demonstrated the safety of a radically unconventional method to oxygenate the human body—enteral ventilation. This pioneering approach involves delivering oxygen through the colon using a super-oxygenated liquid, offering a potential lifeline for patients whose airways are blocked or whose lungs are severely compromised. The concept challenges traditional respiratory support mechanisms and opens a new frontier in emergency and critical care medicine.
The new study by the same team is called “Safety and tolerability of intrarectal perfluorodecalin for enteral ventilation in a first-in-human trial”. Published in the journal Med, it says:
Patients with severe respiratory failure often need mechanical ventilation to survive, but these therapies can cause further lung injury. Scientists are exploring a new method called “enteral ventilation” to deliver oxygen through the intestine, which could give the lungs a chance to rest and heal. This study evaluated the safety of this method in humans for the first time, using a special liquid called perfluorodecalin with exceptional oxygen-carrying ability. In a trial with 27 healthy male volunteers, the authors found that administering this liquid rectally was safe and well tolerated. This important safety milestone paves the way for future studies to see if this technique can help patients with respiratory failure.