Question: Does body mass and size influence the time before irreversible brain damage?

Stuart Archer answered on 21 Jun 2013:

If you’re referring to brain damage due to lack of oxygen, then body mass and size is less important compared to the amount of oxygen someone is capable of storing in their blood. People like trained athletes, or people who live at high altitude have a much higher level of oxygen-carrying ‘haemoglobin’ in their blood. If in the unfortunate circumstance that such a person was suffocating, they may indeed be able to survive a little longer before any damage became permanent. I’m not sure how much longer it would help, and I’m not sure you’d find anyone who’d be willing to let you test it on them!