Reducing Blood Viscosity and Suppressing Turbulence with Magnetic Field to Prevent Heart Attack and Stroke

Heart attacks and strokes are the leading causes of death. High blood viscosity and turbulence in blood circulation are the keys to trigger these diseases, as they place much heavier workload on the heart, develop atherosclerotic plaque and may rapture blood vessels. Reducing blood viscosity and suppressing turbulence is thus the key to prevent cardiovascular diseases. Unfortunately, these two tasks conflict each other. Presently, the only method to reduce blood viscosity is to take medicine, but this method makes the turbulence worse because the Reynolds number goes up with viscosity reduction. Here we report our discovery with magnetorheology (MR): applying a strong magnetic field to blood along its flow direction, red blood cells are polarized and aggregated into short chains. The blood viscosity becomes anisotropic: it is significantly reduced along the flow direction, but is considerably increased in the directions perpendicular to the flow. The blood flow thus becomes laminar and turbulence is suppressed. Our lab and animal tests show that this technology can successfully prevent plaque development. The clinical trials further confirm that this MR technology can effectively cure hypertension and help people to prevent heart attack and stroke.