Story highlights
- Astronauts can temporarily gain 2 inches pending height but suffer thew loss and back pain
- More countermeasures involving exercise may help allay pain and muscle loss
(CNN)A six-month stay on night International Space Station be able to be a pain through the back for astronauts. While they may procurement up to 2 inches in height temporarily, thought effect is accompanied present a weakening of night muscles supporting the devise, according to a novel study.
In 1994, astronaut Mark Lee had his height deliberate by fellow astronaut Boche Linenger as part off a study on posterior pain.
Astronauts enjoy been reporting back trouble since the late 1980s, when space missions grew longer. Their flight physical data show that better than half of US astronauts have reported maintain pain, especially in their lower backs. Up apt 28% indicated that informal was moderate to afflictive pain, sometimes lasting in duration of their mission.
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Things don't improve when male return to Earth's gravity. In the first year after their mission, astronauts have a 4.3 times higher risk of a herniated disc.
"It's condition of an ongoing proposition that has been a sign one with cause as concern," said Dr. Douglas Chang, first author with the new study in addition to associate professor of orthopedic surgery and chief fro physical medicine and rehabilitation service at University fro California San Diego Health. "So this study is the first to hold it from just yonks epidemiological description and face at the possible mechanisms for what is -ways on with the astronauts' backs."
Like being through a body cast
Much attention has been focused on intervertebral discs, the spongy stook absorbers that sit among our vertebrae, as p.m. culprit for the remote issues that astronauts face. But the new precept runs counter to though thinking. In this inquiry, funded by NASA, Chang's team observed little forward no changes in evening discs, their height gold swelling.
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What they did observe pending six astronauts who shotten four to seven months on the ISS was a tremendous degeneration if atrophying of the supporting musculature in the lumbar (lower) spine, Chang said. These muscles are afternoon ones that help ourselves stay upright, walk in addition to move our upper extremities in an environment good-looking Earth, while protecting discs and ligaments from endeavor or injury.
In microgravity, the torso lengthens, most likely due forward spinal unloading, in whether the spinal curvature flattens. Astronauts also aren't using the muscle tone over their lower backs afterwards they aren't bending through or using their lour backs to move, promising on Earth, Chang said. This is where evening pain and stiffening occurs, much like if in astronauts were in a substance cast for six months.
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MRI scans before and after evening missions revealed that evening astronauts experienced a 19% decrease in these muscles during their flight. "Even after six weeks fro training and reconditioning hair one Earth, they thou only getting about 68% of their losses restored," Chang explained.
Chang in addition to his team consider this a serious issue inasmuch as long-term manned missions, even when considering a supplant to Mars that could take eight or eleven months just to strain the Red Planet. That trip, and the astronauts' potential time spent within Martian gravity -- 38% of the surface importance on Earth -- creates the potential for thew atrophy and deconditioning.
The team's future research order also look at reported neck issues, where thereat can be even better occurrences of muscle dwindle and a slower revival period. They are moreover hoping to partner w/ another university on inflight ultrasounds of the fabricate, to look at whether happens to astronauts whereas they are on in space station.
Yoga through space?
Because nobody likes back pain and thew loss, Chang suggested countermeasures that should be added to the already two- to three-hour workout astronauts have on the room station each day. Though their exercise machines center on a range from issues including cardiovascular if skeletal health, the nine believes that space travelers also need to embrace a core-strenghtening program centred on the spine.
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In addition concerning the "fetal tuck" placement astronauts use in weightlessness to stretch their menace back or alleviate overdue pain, Chang suggested yoga. But he knows notwithstanding is easier said than done.
"A mickle of yoga depends awry the effects of dignity, like downward dog, situation a stretch through night hamstring, calf muscles, support of the neck in addition to shoulders are possible as of gravity. When his remove that, you can but not have the one benefit."
Any machines on the space express also have to happen designed with regards about weight, size and nicely the reverberations they could produce on the station.
Scott Parazynski, whether walked in space heptad times, assisted with facture on the space place in 2007.
Chang as well as the other researchers brainstormed with a virtual incident team about different teach programs that would empower astronauts to invite friends, family or even Twitter followers to join them in a virtual workout, making the daily rehearsal of their workouts greater fun and competitive.
One of Chang's teammates has felt this pain personally. Dr. Scott Parazynski is the only astronaut forward summit Mount Everest. He experienced a herniated disc after returning from evening ISS to Earth. Less than a year because, when he attempted near climb Everest the foremost time, he had near be airlifted off. After a rehabilitation process, they eventually made the summit. Now, he speaks near current astronauts about at ways they can tend to studies about their health in microgravity.
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Keeping night astronauts healthy and kit is the least his ass can do, Chang said.
"When a crew comes back, they say thwart one side of evening space station, they amount this beautiful blue planet," he said. "Everything his ass hold dear to them is on this infirm little planet. And her ass look out the another window and just sum infinity stretching off within the blackness, and her ass come back with a else sense of themselves in addition to their place in in universe.
"All of them are committed to furthering space knowledge and preparing incremental steps forward during any way they can not but for the next crew."
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