His next steps are to discern what compounds in the prunes are responsible for the effect. Radiation exposure, in addition to microgravity, during spaceflight causes bone loss for astronauts, though one study points to a surprising prescription for this.īernard Halloran, PhD, a professor in the Department of Medicine, found that mice subjected to radiation and fed a diet containing plum powder lost significantly less bone. In a study focused on bone loss in the hip, Lang and colleagues found that one year after flight, the total bone mass was almost fully recovered but recovered bone was redistributed, resulting in a bone architecture resembling that of an older person.

Lang assessed bone density of astronauts returning from the ISS and found that after six months, they had lost between 6 percent and 9 percent of the total bone density from their hips – losing about as much in a month as a postmenopausal woman loses in a year. “They grow and repair themselves in response to supporting loads against gravity.”īernard Halloran, PhD, found that mice subjected to radiation and fed a diet containing plum powder lost significantly less bone, potentially offering a solution for astronauts. “Bones aren’t just a hard framework,” he said. Lotz is working with NASA to devise a program of multifidus exercises that astronauts can do within the constraints of a spaceship in zero gravity.Įxercise is key not only for muscle strength, but for bone health as well, and Lang has been studying the effect of space travel on bones for decades. Instead, he discovered the source of the back pain was deconditioning of the multifidus muscles, small muscles that connect and support the vertebrae. He’d imagined that the back pain arose from disks swollen with water that would ordinarily get squeezed out by keeping an upright posture in gravity. To figure out why the back pain occurs after the exposure to low gravity, Jeffrey Lotz, PhD, the David Bradford Endowed Chair of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF, recently studied the spines of astronauts after their time in space. Still, many astronauts suffer back pain for years after returning to Earth. In the following decades, astronauts, such as those on the International Space Station (ISS), began to exercise to keep their bones and muscles conditioned during their six-month stays.

After just eight days in orbit, the Apollo astronauts were so weak that they had to be pulled from their landing capsules. Since the first Apollo space flights in the 1960s and ’70s, the effects of space on muscles and bones has been apparent. “We’re attuned to living in gravity,” Lang said.Īs private aerospace companies and NASA are competing to be the first to land on Mars, UCSF researchers, and many others nationwide, are studying the effects of space travel – and trying to find ways to offset those impacts. Many of the changes researchers are seeing as a result of spaceflight are similar to those seen in aging, though they happen much faster in space. Spaceflight seems to have a particularly notable effect on the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and immune systems. “Human physiology is the limiting factor.” “People think of technology as the limiting factor in space flight, but it’s not,” said Thomas Lang, PhD, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at UC San Francisco. Photo courtesy of NASAĪs humans prepare to venture deeper into outer space, including potential trips to Mars, researchers are hard at work trying to understand and mitigate the effects of low gravity and radiation on space travelers’ bodies.

Scientists are working to fully understand how time in space effects the human body and what can be done for mitigation. Human travel in space has known implications for health, and longer voyages, such as to Mars, will mean great impacts.

Gravity on mars