Location: the final boundary. What stops us from studying it? Well, a lot of things, but one of the main issues is space radiation, and the potential impact it can have on the health of astronauts during long missions. New review in the open access magazine Limitations in Cardiovascular Medicine examining what we know about the ways in which space radiation can adversely affect cardiovascular health, and discussing ways to protect astronauts. These include radioprotective drugs, and antioxidant medications, some of which are more common than you might think.
Place is very unsuitable. Outside a low-earth orbit, astronauts are bombarded by radiation, emitting galactic cosmic rays, and ‘proton storms’ emitted by the sun. This radiation is harmful to the human body, damaging proteins and DNA, and this is one of the main reasons why we could not send anyone to Mars, or beyond.
These cases prompted Dr Jesper Hjortnaes from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands to study what we know about the harmful effects of space radiation. “If we want to see human space travel, we need to understand the impact of space-induced disease and how we can protect our bodies from it,” Hjortnaes said. However, Hjortnaes is interested in a particular aspect of space radiation: its cardiovascular effects.
You may be surprised to learn but in addition to the diseases we are usually associated with radiation, such as cancer, it can adversely affect the cardiovascular system. Suffering from cardiovascular disease would be horrible for crew members on long space missions, so it’s important to identify the risks, and how to reduce them.
Hjortnaes and colleagues reviewed the evidence to find out what we know about the cardiovascular risks from space radiation. Much of what we know comes from studying people who have received radiation treatment for cancer, where cardiovascular disease is a common side effect, or from mouse studies on radiation exposure.
So what is the impact? Radiation can cause myocardial remodeling, where the structure of the heart begins to change, and tight, fibrous tension develops instead of healthy muscles, which can lead to heart failure. Other side effects include atherosclerosis in blood vessels, which can cause a stroke or heart attack. Radiation exerts its effects by causing inflammation, oxidative stress, cell death and DNA damage.
Researchers have also studied possible ways to protect astronauts. These include drugs that an astronaut may take to protect themselves from space radiation, and antioxidants. Interestingly, an antioxidant diet, including dairy products, green vegetables such as spinach, and antioxidant products such as vitamin C, has the potential to protect astronauts from the destructive reactive oxygen molecules produced at radiation time.
Overall, the review has shown that, to date, research has only explored the radiation of space radiation and the best ways to protect astronauts from it. There is little conclusive evidence of radiation-induced cardiovascular disease in astronauts themselves, as so few have ever gone beyond a low-earth orbit, and mouse studies are not very similar to humans.
These issues prompted Hjortnaes and colleagues, who develop human heart rate in the laboratory, to conclude that we need to further research these issues, and new research methods, such as technologies. organ-on-a-chip test.
“We need to develop human-based compression platforms, such as heart-on-chip systems, that resemble real human disease, outside the human body, to harness the mechanisms of disease. cardiovascular caused by space radiation dissociation, “Hjortnaes said.
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