Why do we age faster in space? │ Sending Worms to Space with Colleen Deane

What happens to the human body during space flight? And what can we do to protect our bodies during space flight? Join us to find out how the body ages quicker in space than it does on Earth, and what exercises astronauts do on the International Space Station to minimise the negative effects of space flight.

Subscribe and watch all of our episodes in this fascinating series, as researchers strive to overcome some of the biggest obstacles to deep-space exploration by humans.

Space flight is an extreme environment and causes many negative health adaptations to the human body. Some of these changes, such as the loss of our muscle mass or our bone mass, can be the equivalent of ageing over 40 years in a single year-long space flight. These negative space flight adaptations remain some of the greatest obstacles to deep-space exploration, such as going to Mars.

During space flight, astronauts are exposed to the harmful effects of radiation. This increases their risk of cataracts, which causes visual impairments, and DNA damage, which increases the risk of cancer. In fact, astronauts have a 59% increased chance of cancer compared to non-astronauts.

Other negative health adaptations that astronauts face include hearing loss, urinary tract infection, kidney stones, changes in their immune function, bone loss and muscle loss. The loss of bone mass in space is called space flight osteopenia. On average, astronauts lose 1.6% of their outer bone mass and 2.3% of their inner bone mass per month in space. This is only partially recovered within a year of returning to Earth. And it is thought that some bone loss, such as that in the spine, may never be recovered following a mission to Mars.

Astronauts also lose about 20% of their muscle mass and about 40% of their muscle strength, and these declines are sufficient enough to threaten astronaut in-flight operations and their health whilst onboard the International Space Station. Overall, these negative health adaptations result in a greater mortality for astronauts compared to people on Earth.

To try to minimise the negative effects of space flight on the body, astronauts perform about two hours of exercise six days a week whilst they are on board the International Space Station. They perform endurance exercise such as cycling and treadmill running using a harness. And they also perform weight training using the advanced resistance exercise device.

However, these exercise countermeasures are not fully effective, since astronauts return to Earth with smaller and weaker muscles. Now this tells us that there are molecules within the muscle that are contributing to the space flight-induced muscle decline. And if we can find out what these molecules are, we can develop more effective interventions to preserve muscle health in space and on Earth.

Why do we study worms in space to find out more about the ageing process? Find out in the next episode of this amazing new series, Worms in Space for Health on Earth. Subscribe now to watch all of the episodes. Hit the bell button to receive notifications of new downloads.