Why is muscle an important organ? │ Sending Worms to Space with Colleen Deane
In which ways are worms similar to humans?
And why did we send them on a mission to space to discover more about our muscle health as we get older?
Watch this fascinating new series, in which researcher Colleen Deane explains how studying worms in space yields vital information about how we age on Earth.
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Why will studying worms in space help us improve our muscle health on Earth?
This new series will explain how. Stay with us to find out the ways in which worms are similar to humans. Subscribe and watch all of the episodes in this fascinating series, which will help you understand your body in new and surprising ways.
Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in the human body, and it accounts for approximately half of your body weight. Skeletal muscles, like the ones in your arms and your legs, are responsible for generating movements and allow us to carry out simple daily tasks such as getting out of bed and walking around.
Muscles also carry out other very important tasks such as taking up the majority of sugars that circulate in our blood after we have eaten. Muscles can then turn the sugar into energy, which the body uses to produce muscle contraction and also uses for energy-demanding cellular processes.
Muscles taking up blood sugar also keep our bodies healthy by reducing the risk of certain diseases such as type 2 diabetes. So, maintaining our muscles is very important to keeping our body healthy. However, during certain conditions, such as ageing or during space flight, our muscles get smaller and they get weaker. And this increases the risks of us falling over and also increases the risks of disease.
Now, the specific molecules within the muscle that contribute to smaller and weaker muscles during ageing or space flight, they remain unknown. So, we must find out what these molecules are so that we can create new interventions that optimise our muscle health.
Within this series, we will discuss how sending tiny worms to the International Space Station can help us uncover what molecules within the body keep our muscles healthy and how this information can help us keep astronauts healthy in space and keep humans healthy on Earth.
Studying changes in the human body during space flight helps us understand how we age on Earth. Stay tuned for the next episodes of Worms in Space for Health on Earth as we analyse the effects of space flight on humans and how exercise in space can help to keep the body healthy.
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