Last year, Dr. Tamar Lotan explained that the belief that vinegar helps against jellyfish stings is a myth. Now, ahead of the events of the night of the scientists, an experiment in her laboratory shows that the vinegar can even make the burn worse
Using vinegar as a remedy for jellyfish stings not only does not help, it may even worsen the situation and cause the jellyfish's hunting arms to release more venom into the body, as it turned out in an experiment conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Tamar Lotan, a marine biologist from the School of Marine Sciences of the University of Haifa, in preparation for the events Scientists' Night this coming Thursday at the University of Haifa, which will focus on the study of the sea.
Already the previous summer, Dr. Lotan said that the myth that developed around the effectiveness of vinegar as a substance that can counteract jellyfish venom was based on studies conducted on the box jellyfish and there is no research or reason to assume that vinegar affects the venom mechanisms of the wandering filamentous jellyfish, "our" jellyfish . Since this year the theme of the "Scientists' Night" is the study of the sea, Dr. Lutan's laboratory asked to examine their assumption under the microscope so that they could verify or disprove it for the general public.
For this, they collected a large number of hunting arms of jellyfish - the tiny organ with which the jellyfish stings us. On top of each such arm are millions of tiny, syringe-like burning mechanisms, about a hundredth of a millimeter in size and inside them a needle with multiple lugs. When activated by contact with the human skin, a pressure of 150 atmospheres develops in the syringe - 70 times the pressure found in a car wheel - which causes the needle to be released and inserted into the skin with the same force as the speed of a gun bullet as it exits the muzzle.
After checking under the microscope that the hunting arms were "full" of the burning mechanisms, the researchers injected vinegar. Within a few seconds, the stinging mechanisms began to "shoot" the poison in them and release the needles. That is, not only did the vinegar not suppress or contradict the burning mechanisms, it caused these mechanisms to act quickly. According to Gadi Piritansky, a research student in the laboratory who performed the experiment, when stung by a jellyfish, the jellyfish injects most of the venom in the hunting arms, but sometimes some of the hunting arms or venom mechanisms can remain on the body. Using vinegar will cause unfired syringes to shoot their venom, which will only increase the burning.
"The treatment for a wandering thread burn is washing with water and soothing the affected area with medical preparations. If the burn is over a large area or the body's reaction is acute such as strong swelling, redness or an allergic reaction, you should seek medical treatment", he mentions the effective way to treat a burn.
As part of the Scientists' Night events at the University of Haifa, Dr. Lotan will lecture about the fascinating world of jellyfish, creatures over 500 million years old, with engineering capabilities that man still cannot understand or replicate. Dr. Lotan will present the newest research that attempts to replicate the stinging mechanisms of the jellyfish and explain what humans can gain from this.
For the previous news on the subject: There is no point in pouring vinegar on jellyfish burns
16 תגובות
sea medic
The point is that no one claims that vinegar helps burns. The claim is that the vinegar increases the introduction of the venom of threads left on the body. And there are arguments about this claim, because there are two different phenomena.
Hello miracles,
But we are talking about jellyfish in Israel...
I didn't understand what your argument was.
The scientist seems to know what he is talking about. very serious
His every word is a word.
sea medic
The claim is not related to the burn but to the continued injection of the poison.
In any case, the danger with jellyfish (not in Israel) is not the damage to the skin but the damage to the nervous system.
For a long time and on many burnt bathers we tried vinegar and saw that nothing happened.
Only surfers who "knew" it helped (???) felt better after vinegar - and even that - not always. In terms of how the burn looks - nothing has changed as a result of the vinegar.
After inquiries, we started treating with antihistamine ointments (Penistil for example)
or materials for the treatment of burns (BURNSHIELD)
and aloe vera for minor burns.
another world. Rapid improvement in pain, in the appearance of the burn.
Vinegar for jellyfish stings is as good as perfume for fainting...
As for the scars Sha'aran Haalah here - it's a function of exposure to the sun while the skin is damaged and burned.
Do not expose the burn to the sun until the skin heals - there will be no scar.
Be exposed to the sun - get a scar that will go with you two or three years ahead.
Well done and thank you, dear Lutans
Eyal
There is a phenomenon called Irukandji Syndrome that describes what happens after 20-30 minutes: beating, sweating, joint pain, terrible depression. Not a pleasure, but not necessarily deadly.
The sea wasp, much more effective, 2-5 minutes of excruciating pain.
Both are extremely dangerous, but Australia doesn't have that many deaths, mostly because of awareness. There are many more deaths than bees for example 🙂
For some reason I remembered that the Irokanji is the most deadly, it is mostly common on the coast of Australia.
Eyal
You are talking about the Iroquois - and he is indeed terrible. But you have 20-30 minutes until the poison has a severe effect and there is a chance to be saved.
Rather larger types are more dangerous, and cause death so quickly that you don't have time to finish the cigarette... this species is called sea wasp in Australia.
In the cube jellyfish family there is a particularly deadly jellyfish, it is tiny, only about the size of a fingernail, but its venom is deadly and causes excruciating pain and I think even death, I remember there was an episode about it on the Discovery Channel:
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%95%D7%96%D7%AA_%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%A0%D7%92'%D7%99
Asaf
I distinctly remember not to wash with fresh water because it results in immediate shooting of what remains. should be washed in sea water. It also makes more sense... fresh water is a foreign body for the threads.
Interesting study but very early to draw conclusions from it.
Below are some very basic failures in the transition between the presented research and the presented title (which I believe was inserted by the editor of the site and not by the researchers).
These data:
1) The researchers discovered in a laboratory experiment that contact with vinegar on the jellyfish's arms accelerates the release of the needles from the jellyfish's arms and accelerates the release of toxins from the needles.
2) The researchers assume that after burning the skin some of the hunting arms or needles that have not yet released toxins may remain in the skin.
3) Regarding assumption 2, the researchers assume that if it does exist, using vinegar on the skin will cause the release of additional toxins and therefore aggravation.
4) It is not written that assumption 2 was tested, neither in the laboratory nor in the field with people who were actually bitten.
5) It is not written that assumption 3 was tested, neither in the laboratory nor in the field with people who were actually bitten.
There is a great distance between the statement at the top of the article and the collected evidence on which it is based.
In my opinion, this is the reason why people like Eran, who have not done regulated experiments in a laboratory, but have experienced the real thing many times, do not agree on such a statement.
You should pay attention to the article and video:
In both it is said (in the passage) that the vinegar activates the threads left on the swimmer's body,
In both it is said that (it is possible) that the vinegar will neutralize the existing burns,
In both it is said that there are few cases in which arms will remain stuck (on the one who came out of the water),
Conclusion - the correct and effective way is:
Remove (by washing with fresh water) the stuck arms (threads).
Then use a variety of dressings - including vinegar to soothe the burns.
It has already been said that "end of response in reading comprehension".
Despite the research that was done and I'm not underestimating God forbid, all my life I've been surfing and I've been stung by jellyfish and vinegar definitely works, in cases where I didn't put vinegar the burn got a thousand times worse and even left a scar.
Also in the context of the box jellyfish there is now a debate about the effectiveness of vinegar. It turns out that the vinegar prevents the nematocysts from continuing to fire, but increases the emission of venom from those that have already fired. They say that the pain from these jellyfish is the most terrible pain there is, and there is a danger of death in a very short time...