SCIENTISTS have noticed the terrifying toll that time in outer space has on astronauts, and future missions might be in jeopardy.
A 2022 study reveals that the condition known as “space anemia,” originally thought to be temporary may have longer-lasting impacts on space travelers.
Over the course of a six-month space expedition, researchers found the human body destroys about 54 percent more red blood cells in space than it would on Earth.
“This is the best description we have of red blood cell control in space and after return to Earth,” reported epidemiologist Guy Trudel from the University of Ottawa, Canada in the study.
“These findings are spectacular, considering these measurements had never been made before and we had no idea if we were going to find anything. We were surprised and rewarded for our curiosity,” he continued.
Researchers took the measurements via blood tests of iron and breath tests based on carbon monoxide.
When the tests were conducted on the space travelers on Earth, astronauts in the study were creating and destroying about 2 million red blood cells a second.
However, when those same tests were run in space, 3 million blood cells a second were destroyed by the astronauts’ bodies,
For years, scientists thought that because the human body loses about 10 percent of the liquid flowing through our blood vessels in microgravity, the “space anemia” phenomenon could be explained away.
Researchers believed that the loss of red blood cells was potentially the body’s way of compensating for a loss in blood volume.
However, this most recent study reveals that the effects could be far longer lasting than previously thought.
Throughout the mission, the red blood cell loss never equalized out.
Even after 120 days in space, the red blood cell loss never declined.
“Our study shows that upon arriving in space, more red blood cells are destroyed, and this continues for the entire duration of the astronaut’s mission,” said Trudel.
When they returned to Earth When they returned to Earth, five out of 13 of the astronauts tested had reached clinically diagnosable levels of anemia, meaning their bodies didn’t have enough red blood cells to function properly.
This means that in the future, space travelers’ diets may need to be adjusted to compensate.
The study was published in Nature Medicine.