--- title: "Florida Man Says He’s Shrunk From Living Months Underwater" description: "Retired Navy commander and university professor Joe Dituri has spent close to 100 days underwater and says he has shrunk half an inch." date: "2023-06-06" modified: "2023-06-06" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/florida-man-shrunk-underwater" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Studies" tags: - "Aging" - "pressure" - "underwater" --- # Florida Man Says He’s Shrunk From Living Months Underwater ![Retired Navy commander and university professor Joe Dituri has spent close to 100 days underwater and says he has shrunk half an inch.]() *\Image: Instagram\* Retired Navy commander and university professor Joe Dituri has spent close to 100 days confined in an underwater habitat almost 30 feet below the surface off the Florida coast. Dituri, who [broke the record]() for the longest time spent underwater on May 14 at 73 days, is still down there, and planning to stick around until he hits an even 100 days on Friday. And the effects the added pressure is having on his physical body are really starting to show. For one, he noticed that he no longer bangs his head on an iron handle attached to the ceiling. "I've already shrunk at least a half an inch \[due to the pressure\]," Dituri [told *FOX 13*](). When asked if he's expecting to grow the height back again once he reemerges, Dituri gave a surprising answer. "I don't know," he told the broadcaster. "No idea. That's why we're doing this." The roughly 100-square-foot habitat was built in the early 1980s and was originally intended for tourists to spend a night underwater. Dituri has been using the habitat to study how the added pressure some 30 feet underwater — [almost twice]() that on the surface — is affecting his body. According to his own measurements, Dituri claims his cholesterol is already down. The researcher is also suggesting that since his body is producing stem cells, the telomeres at the end of his chromosomes are growing instead of shortening, a process that is usually associated with aging. In other words, he thinks spending prolonged periods of time underwater could slow down aging, a [controversial conclusion](). "I suspect, and I'll find out exactly how many, but I suspect it will add that many more to my life," Dituri told *FOX 13*. It's worth noting that Dituri also runs the Undersea Oxygen Clinic, where patients are subjected to higher pressures inside hyperbaric chambers to simulate a deep sea environment, meaning he has a financial interest in promoting purported health benefits of the therapy. As the US Food and Drug Administration [notes](), hyperbaric oxygen therapy is already being used to treat health problems such as carbon monoxide poisoning and diabetic foot ulcers. Yet many claims surrounding the treatment remain unproven. While experts have yet to analyze Dituri's findings, at the very least it's a fascinating glimpse into what living deep underwater does both physically and emotionally. "The thing that I miss the most about being on the surface is literally the Sun," he [said previously](). **More on the experiment:** *[Florida Man Has Been Living Underwater for Two and Half Months]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()