Astronauts who were in space for six months or longer still had long-term bone loss equivalent to a decade of aging, one year after returning.
Gabel and her colleagues tracked 17 astronauts, 14 men and three women with the average age of 47, who spent from four to seven months in space. The team used high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography, or HR-pQCT, which can measure 3-D bone microarchitecture on scales of 61 microns, finer than the thickness of human hair, to image the bone structure of the tibia in the lower leg and the radius in the lower arm.
Astronauts in space for less than six months were able to regain their preflight bone strength after a year back in Earth’s gravity. But those in space longer had permanent bone loss in their shinbones, or tibias, equivalent to a decade of aging. Their lower-arm bones, or radii, showed almost no loss, likely because these aren’t weight-bearing bones, says Gabel.
Increasing weight lifting exercises in space could help alleviate bone loss, says Steven Boyd, also a Calgary exercise scientist. “A whole bunch of struts and beams all held together give your bone its overall strength,” says Boyd. “Those struts or beams are what we lose in spaceflight.” Once these microscopic tissues called trabeculae are gone, you can’t rebuild them, but you can strengthen the remaining ones, he says.
Using high-resolution computed tomography imaging allowed researchers to study 3-D bone microarchitecture in astronauts’ bones . That minute level of detail can reveal changes in bone density and strength.“With longer spaceflight, we can expect bigger bone loss and probably a bigger problem with recovery,” says physiologist Laurence Vico of the University of Saint-Étienne in France, who was not part of the study.
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