Deep spaces could seriously damage the gastrointestinal tract of the astronaut – Brinkwire

Traveling and exploring space is obviously a dangerous business. Astronauts launch themselves knowing that they may not come back, and future missions in the solar system will be even more risky. According to a new study, travel to distant places could even cause significant gastrointestinal damage to astronauts.

Researchers at the Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) exposed mice to radiation to simulate the impact of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) in the deep space on future astronauts. Their results suggest that the radiation could cause serious damage to the GI. Their study even raises concerns as to how these radiations could eventually cause tumor growth in the stomach and colon.

"Spatial radiation is different from radiation on Earth," says Kamal Datta, an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and project leader at NASA's NSCOR's GUMC. Currently, "we do not know how spatial radiation affects the gastrointestinal tract," adds Datta. And overall, he explains that our understanding of the effect of cosmic radiation on the health of astronauts is an "unknown territory".

Astronaut Guts

Every three to five days, the upper layer of cells in our gastrointestinal tract is replaced by brand new cells. This process is part of the healthy digestive function. According to Albert Fornace Jr., co-author of the study and director of NASA's GSCA (NASA) Specialized Research Center, this replacement process can change the way we absorb nutrients and even lead to cancer.

To simulate the radiation that astronauts might experience, researchers exposed mice to short doses of a low dose of ferrous radiation at the Nasa Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL). The researchers compared these mice to mice exposed to gamma rays, comparable to X-rays, according to a statement. In parallel with a third control group, the researchers monitored the mice after exposure and found that the mice in the ferrous radiation group, or exposed to radiation comparable to that which could be suffered by astronauts, formed cancerous growths and did not develop. were not able to properly absorb the nutrients.

In addition, the research team found that mice exposed to ferrous radiation produced more senescent cells, a type of cell incapable of regular cell division. These cells can slow the replacement of gastrointestinal cells, slowing down gastrointestinal function, causing oxidative stress, and even causing serious damage to the digestive system.

This damage caused by the radiation appeared to be permanent, according to the statement.

Risks for astronauts

The team has announced its intention to continue studying these effects in mice and will use longer radiation to simulate longer exposure. And while "mouse data" may not be a perfect analogue for studying human health impacts, there are not enough astronauts to collect data to draw a conclusion and there are would probably have ethical problems if the researchers tried to use human astronauts as test subjects in a similar experiment. Nevertheless, Datta hopes to develop a human risk estimation model that allows space agencies to calculate risks for astronauts in future missions.

Once they understand the risks better, said Datta, "the goal is to develop protective measures, that we can test a drug or drug that can prevent any observed changes."

This work was published on October 1, 2018, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

This article originally appeared on Discovermagazine.com.