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>> Space flight results in many negative health
effects, and causes may include microgravity,
radiation, or isolation and stress. And at
the Johnson Space Center, we have laboratories
dedicated to investigating each of these phenomenon.
I work in the immunology laboratory, which
studies the human immune system and how it
may change during space flight. The immune
system is a variety of different cell types
throughout the body. They fight infection
and are also important for maintaining proper
physiology. The immune system can be negatively
affected by many of the factors associated
with flight. Microgravity itself may directly
inhabit immune cell function. Stress has a
profound effect on the immune system which
is why we're more susceptible to illness when
we're stressed out, and proper nutrition is
important for maintaining a healthy immune
system. We're very interested in how the immune
system changes during space flight, and determining
if it increases crew health risks during exploration
class missions. NASA's just completed a successful
immune study onboard ISS, which collected
blood and saliva samples from astronauts,
and returned them to the ground for terrestrial
analysis. The results indicate that in astronauts
there are interesting alterations in the immune
system that persist for the duration of an
ISS mission. This includes diminished capacity
of these cells to respond, interruptions,
and sleep cycles, increases in stress hormone
levels, and all of this results in the persistent
reactivation of viruses. So this is not widespread
illness among the crew, but interesting research
findings that raise our concern for these
deep space exploration class missions. For
the future, we're designing the next generation
of immune studies, which will complete the
characterization of the immune system during
space flight, and allow us to proceed to the
evaluation of counter measures, if they're
necessary. Counter measures may include nutritional
supplementation, or pharmacological intervention,
or even things like radiation shielding, or
exercise will have benefits on the immune
system. Studies of how space flight affects
the immune system may provide benefits to
earth-based medicine. This includes information
on how stress causes immune system changes
in healthy adults, changes
that may precede disease.
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