Lying Around

ORIGINAL: NASA

09.23.08

Heather Archuletta recently participated in a NASA bed rest study. Participants' general health and fitness are evaluated prior to the 90-day test period. Image Credit: Heather Archuletta

Earlier this year Heather Archuletta experienced what it's like to be in space -- well, sort of.

Archuletta lay in bed for nearly two months as part of NASA's bed rest study. The study simulates the effects of long-duration spaceflight by having test subjects lie in beds for 90 days. (Archuletta's study was cut short by Hurricane Ike.) The beds are tilted head-down at a six-degree angle. This tilt causes body fluids to shift to the upper part of the body much like they do in space.
"I don't think I could ever do what a real astronaut does, but I am happy to mimic their journey for the sake of keeping future ones more healthy," Archuletta said.

Through bed rest studies, NASA scientists develop new ways to keep astronauts healthier when they spend a long time in the microgravity of space. NASA calls these methods countermeasures. NASA uses countermeasures to minimize the changes that occur to the body during spaceflight and to enable the return of normal body functions once back on Earth.

The studies are conducted at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, as part of the Flight Analog Project at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The facility opened in 2005, but project manager Joe Neigut said the concept of bed rest studies has been around for a long time.

"What we're trying to do with bed rest is enable researchers to be able to perform science and different areas of research on these subjects," Neigut said. "We're really about countermeasures and trying to use our facility to test countermeasures that may end up in flight."

While in space, astronauts are limited in the amount of time they spend conducting research. So, scientists have to be selective about what new countermeasures are submitted for in-flight testing. Being able to test new ideas on Earth saves invaluable flight time, Neigut said.

So just what exactly goes on while people are lying in bed for a 90-day bed rest study?

During the 90-day bed rest study, participants do everything in bed, from showering to eating to socializing with other participants. Image Credit: NASA

 "They do basically everything in bed, and they're not allowed to get up until the 90 days is over," said Ronita Cromwell, the Flight Analogs Project scientist. "They are allowed to move in bed. We encourage them to use their upper bodies, which mimics the astronauts who rely more on their upper bodies for mobility while in space."
Archuletta said the hardest adjustment for her was not being able to get out of bed and exercise every day. "I always get out of bed and either run, go rollerblading or to the gym," she said. "That's a big change, and I have bottled-up energy in place of all the calories I'm not burning."

Another recent participant, 27-year-old Devin Juel, related the feeling of lying in bed to that of a baby who can't walk. An electrical engineer and machinist from Iowa, Juel said his biggest challenge during the study was depending on someone else and asking for help for nearly everything. 

"At first it felt like my head and upper torso was underwater, like under pressure," Juel said. "But after a few days it went away (and felt) normal."

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Study participants have access to television, movies, video games, computers and the Internet to help them occupy their time during bed rest studies. Image Credit: NASA

 Neigut said the most common misconception is that a bed rest study is a sleep study. It is not a sleep study, and in fact participants are not allowed to sleep during the day. "If you walk though our unit, you will not see people lying around bored," Neigut said. "They're very busy. Their phones are ringing. They're usually enjoying themselves. Sometimes they'll bring musical instruments. ... After a few days it feels very normal to them."

Participants also interact with each other, have televisions in their rooms, and have access to board games, video games, computers and the Internet. Cromwell said the project encourages people to have a goal, such as learning a language or taking an online course.

During Archuletta's bed rest study, the 38-year-old learned sign language and studied for graduate school. "It's all about putting the free time to good use when you can't move around much," she said.
The San Francisco native said the study gave her a good break from her work routine as an information technology specialist and gave her a chance to catch up on her reading. She initially applied for the study just to see what questions were asked on the application.

"When screeners contacted me, I considered it carefully, due to the risks, but finally felt I couldn’t pass up the opportunity!" Archuletta said. "I've always been fascinated by space exploration, launches, NASA artifacts and so on."

She said it was a privilege to help NASA achieve its space goals to go to the moon and beyond. A mission to Mars, for example, would take at least six months just to reach the planet. Astronauts may then live on the surface for 18 months. "When we land on the Red Planet, we need people healthy enough to walk about! ... I imagine what it would be like to see on the news that a manned trip to Mars was successful, and I will get to say, 'When I was young, I was a small part of helping to make that happen.'"

Astronaut Peggy Whitson has spent a total of 377 days in space and currently holds the U.S. record for the most days in space. Image Credit: NASA

Born in 1969 -- the same year as the first moon landing -- Archuletta said she is in awe of how far spaceflight has come and also where it's headed just in her own lifetime.

"When I was a child, going into space for three days was amazing. This last astronaut who stayed in the space station long-term, Garrett Reisman of STS-124, was there for nearly 96 days, and another will soon be going to the ISS (International Space Station) for six months. Two of my 'heroes' are the first female shuttle commander Eileen Collins and also astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the American record for spending more than a year of her life (377 days) in space!

"I think sometimes people forget to pause and ponder how truly incredible that is and the dedication it takes. Humans have made such remarkable efforts in terms of exploration, and maybe sometimes we forget how special it is to even have the capability to leave the planet."

Spaceflight May Extend the Lifespan of Microscopic Worm

ORIGINAL: Science Daily

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2012) — The effect of spaceflight on a microscopic worm --Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) -- could help it to live longer.

Image of worms post flight. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Nottingham) 

The discovery was made by an international group of scientists studying the loss of bone and muscle mass experienced by astronauts after extended flights in space. The results of this research have been published July 5 2012, in the online journal Scientific Reports.

Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk, from The University of Nottingham, was part of the ICE-FIRST project which involved scientists from Japan, France, the US, and Canada. They discovered that spaceflight suppressed accumulation of toxic proteins that normally accumulate within aging muscle. They also discovered a group of genes that are expressed at lower levels during spaceflight. When the expression of these same genes were lowered in worms back on Earth the worms lived longer.

Dr Szewczyk, an expert in muscle metabolism, said: "We identified seven genes, which were down-regulated in space and whose inactivation extended lifespan under laboratory conditions."

How do these genes play a role in longevity control? Dr. Szewczyk said: "We are not entirely certain, but it would appear that these genes are involved in how the worm senses the environment and signals changes in metabolism in order to adapt to the environment. For example, one of the genes we have identified encodes insulin which, because of diabetes, is well known to be associated with metabolic control. In worms, flies, and mice insulin is also associated with modulation of lifespan."

What could this mean for space travellers? He said: "Well, most of us know that muscle tends to shrink in space. These latest results suggest that this is almost certainly an adaptive response rather than a pathological one. Counter-intuitively, muscle in space may age better than on Earth. It may also be that spaceflight slows the process of aging."

Dr Szewczyk's role was to provide expertise in the culturing of worms in CeMM -- a special liquid food for worms. Dr Szewczyk transported the samples to and from the Russian launch site and ran a series of 'health' checks to ensure that the tiny astronauts were fit for flying. On their return he helped with the analysis of the data.

Nottingham's space biology lab

Dr Szewczyk studies the signals that control muscle protein degradation in the human body. C. elegans is the perfect substitute for studying long-term changes in human physiology because they suffer from muscle atrophy -- muscle loss -- under many of the same conditions that people do.

C. elegans was the first multi-cellular organism to have its genetic structure completely mapped and many of its 20,000 genes perform the same functions as those in humans. Two thousand of these genes have a role in promoting muscle function and 50 to 60 per cent of these have very obvious human counterparts.

When the research began Dr Szewczyk was working at NASA. He is now based at The University of Nottingham's MRC and Arthritis Research UK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research. 

The experiment in 2004 involved a consignment of live worms being despatched to the International Space Station (ISS) onboard the Dutch DELTA mission.

He uses worms which originate from a garbage dump in Bristol. C. elegans often feed on decaying fruit and vegetable matter.

They have since taken part in five spaceflights to the ISS with the aim of learning more about the effect of microgravity on the physiology of the human body.

Notably, in 2003 Dr Szewczyk's C. elegans made the news when they survived the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Living in petri dishes and enclosed in aluminium canisters the worms survived re-entry and impact on the ground and were recovered weeks after the disaster.

This spaceflight work teaches us things about the body that we couldn't learn on Earth. They have led to the publication of research into how to block muscle degradation using a form of gene therapy in PLoS ONE and publication of a muscle repair mechanism in PLoS Genetics. The work on C. elegans has also established that worms can live and reproduce for at least six months in space. This makes it an ideal and cost-effective experimental system to investigate the effects of long duration and distance space exploration as recently reported in Interface, a journal of The Royal Society. Together these missions have established that the team is not only better able to understand how muscle works on Earth but they are also in a position to send worms to other planets and experiment on them along the way.

Astronaut now being studied

Another member of the Centre's team is currently examining the effects of spaceflight upon the muscles of the current European record holder for time spent in space.

Andre Kuipers, the Dutch astronaut who flew the mission in 2004, has just returned from ISS with yet another worm experiment from space for the team at Nottingham and is also, himself, being studied.

That experiment, led by Professor Marco Narici, is to study the effects of long-duration spaceflight on human muscle.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nottingham .

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Yoko Honda, Akira Higashibata, Yohei Matsunaga, Yukiko Yonezawa, Tsuyoshi Kawano, Atsushi Higashitani, Kana Kuriyama, Toru Shimazu, Masashi Tanaka, Nathaniel J. Szewczyk, Noriaki Ishioka, Shuji Honda. Genes down-regulated in spaceflight are involved in the control of longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Scientific Reports, 2012; 2 DOI: 10.1038/srep00487