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'Artificial
gravity' can prevent muscle loss in space travellers Washington:
Space travellers, who stay for longer hours in zero gravity, suffer muscle
loss rendering them unable to walk or even sit up on their return to Earth. Now,
researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have conducted
the first human experiments by using a device intended to counteract this effect-a
NASA centrifuge. The centrifuge spins a test subject with his or her feet outward
30 times a minute, creating an effect similar to standing against a force two
and half times that of gravity. After working with volunteers kept in bed for
three weeks to simulate zero gravity conditions, the researchers found that just
one hour a day on the centrifuge was sufficient to restore muscle synthesis. "This
gives us a potential countermeasure that we might be able to use on extended space
flights and solve a lot of the problems with muscle wasting. This small amount
of loading, one hour a day of essentially standing up, maintained the potential
for muscle growth," said UTMB associate professor Douglas Paddon-Jones, senior
author of the study on the centrifuge research. The study was conducted on 15
healthy male volunteers, all of whom spent 21 days lying in a slightly head-down
position that previous investigations have shown produces effects on muscles like
those of weightlessness. Eight rode the centrifuge daily. Measurements of protein
synthesis and breakdown in thigh and calf muscle were taken at the beginning and
end of the investigation, using muscle biopsies and blood samples. The results
showed that members of the centrifuge group continued to make thigh muscle protein
at a normal rate, while the control group's muscle synthesis rate dropped by almost
half. "We've studied elderly inpatients here at UTMB - 95 percent of the time
they're completely inactive, and in three days they lose more than a kilogram
of muscle. A human centrifuge may not be the answer, but we are interested in
seeing if something as simple as increasing the amount of time our patients spend
standing and moving can slow down this process," he said. The study is published
in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.
-July
23, 2009 Go
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