Medicines will help restore the damage to health caused by weightlessness

Medicines will help restore the damage to health caused by weightlessness

Weightlessness is hard tolerated by the human body. Muscles and bones weaken, eye strain increases, movements change. Rehabilitation for the astronauts of the International Space Station can go on for months, and it takes a long time to re-adapt to every day on Earth. Can drugs reduce this process?

It turns out that weightlessness can affect the human cellular structure. The study, which was conducted at a special research station called “Cytospace”, helped to look at the structural and genetic changes in breast carcinoma cells under the influence of various physical stresses caused by microgravity. The experiment, which was conducted in the autonomous research chamber of the company “Kayser Italia”, showed that in different conditions cells change the shape of the cell skeleton under the influence of weightlessness, but are restored after they are placed in conditions of normal gravity.

“With our experimental capabilities, we are not able to assess whether these changes will be permanent,” notes project manager Alessandro Palombo, from the University of Rome La Sapienza in his e-mail to “Discovery News”. “In any case, preliminary results obtained by our laboratory show that MCF-7 cells exposed to weightlessness in the laboratory's Random Positioning Machine restored their normal structure after being placed under normal gravity conditions.” According to researchers, changes in cell shape can affect gene cell chains, and this can activate more extensive biochemical changes - for example, changes in cellular functions during cell division. But there is the possibility of creating drugs to combat these effects.

“It is well known that some natural ingredients, such as melatonin, can act as a modulator of the cell skeleton,” says Palombo. “In our experimental setups, we particularly focused on the question of whether melatonin can withstand the effect of weightlessness on the cell skeleton, and whether it can be used for astronauts for pharmacological purposes.”

According to the recommendations of the researchers, astronauts are already taking drugs to combat bone loss. In addition to vitamin D, calcium, and a variety of physical exercises (approximately two hours a day), they are encouraged to take bisphosphonate, a therapeutic agent that is used in the treatment of patients with osteoporosis.

It is very early to say with certainty how effective melatonin can be in pharmacological use. NASA, in its press release, considers it necessary to conduct additional studies to assess the effect of weightlessness on the human cellular and genetic structures. Another possible direction for research is the specificity of the effects of weightlessness on the growth of cancer cells. Cancer is a complex disease, and it is still early to say how these studies will affect its treatment. However, NASA believes that “a better understanding of the relationship between cell shape and gene expression will also help in the development of drugs to treat various diseases, including cancer.”

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