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nasa does everything possible to keep

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our astronauts safe on the station

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including keeping them healthy

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even on early space missions nasa

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doctors and scientists noted notice that

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astronauts experience bone loss similar

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to the bone loss experienced by people

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who have osteoporosis on earth

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one of the very first studies on board

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the space station characterized bone

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loss for crews flying long duration

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missions results from this experiment

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may help investigators understand bone

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loss on earth as well as in space

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lori meggs with the space station's

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payload operations integration center at

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marshall space flight center in

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huntsville alabama caught up with tom

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lang the lead scientist on sub-regional

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bone investigation

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he discussed his findings and what we're

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doing to counteract the effects of

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microgravity on bone tissue

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this study took place on the first

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eight expeditions of the iss

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and it was justified by the results of

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previous a very important previous study

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on mir which showed that mere cosmonauts

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when you measured them with bone

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densitometry before and after their

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mission

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lost

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in a month of space flight the

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equivalent of bone the bone density lost

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by

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an average post menopausal woman every

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year

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so one month of bone loss and

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microgravity

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equaled about a year's worth of bone

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loss

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you know in this sort of clinical

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population on earth we had the uh

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privilege of working with you know this

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brand new iss and we

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you know we started when the expedition

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2

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docked with the iss

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and

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what was interesting about our study

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is that we had three time points we had

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pre-flight post flight and one year

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after flight to look at recovery of bone

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and in addition to that we used an

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imaging modality called quantitative

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computed tomography it uses the same

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ct scanners that one uses in a hospital

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but there are special

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calibration techniques and special image

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image processing techniques that allow

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us not only to look at bone mass but

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really to almost dissect the bone in

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this case we were looking at the

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vertebrae and the hips

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looking at bone dimensions bone

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structure

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sub-regional bone density as well

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as being able to quantify bone strength

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so it's been eight years since you

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wrapped up your investigation

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what did you learn and and how are we

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using that information today so

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i thought we had some

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very important findings so we can look

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in two ways one of them what happens

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in this group of astronauts who flew on

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these first

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increments of the space station what

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happens between launch and landing and

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there what we found

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was that

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just looking at bone density alone by

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standard techniques really concealed

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interesting things that were happening

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in different small sub regions of the

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bone and what we saw was that with space

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flight the cortical bone changed at

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roughly the same rate as the change in

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overall bone density which was very much

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the same as what we saw in mir so we saw

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the same sort of bone density changes on

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the iss as we saw at mir but when we

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looked in more detail what we saw is

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that the trabecular

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bone was being lost

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at 50 percent higher rate than the

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cortical bone or the overall rate of

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bone density we found that the loss of

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bone strength

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outstripped

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the loss of bone density by standard

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bone densitometry techniques by 50 to 70

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percent and that's a very important

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finding because really

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bone density is not a very meaningful

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concept biologically or in terms of

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fracture risk a fracture is the failure

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of a bone essentially as an engineering

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structure the structure of the bone

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cannot hold up to the forces in a fall

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for example and so what we need is a

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direct estimate of bone strength and so

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we found that that was changing

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very rapidly

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and then we were able to look at the

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recovery data

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and what we saw was that if we just

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looked at bone mass alone or the volume

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of cortical bone essentially the losses

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were recovered so effectively a year

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after their mission the astronauts in

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terms of their bone mass or their

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standard clinical bone densitometry were

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about where they were when they launched

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but

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what happened was with the ct we could

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measure what's called the volumetric

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bone density

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independent of size

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that really did not recover

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but what happened was the mass of the

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bone was recovering because it was

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growing bigger so to accommodate these

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renewed stresses upon landing

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the bone adapted by increasing its size

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and that is something that we see in

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aging so if we look at the hips

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of

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healthy person and we compare these

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to

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people of the same race and gender who

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are five decades older what we see is

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tremendous bone age related

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bone loss in these older people but

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these older people even when you correct

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for differences in body size have larger

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bone dimensions their bones are growing

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bigger to deal with

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the loss of aging

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but we were able to see in a year

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what it takes decades to see in earth

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studies and the biology of what we were

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able to see with our nasa studies really

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sheds light on this very important

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aspect of the biology of aging in space

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one is under microgravity one is close

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to weightless

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and the load on bone is removed and bone

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is lost and so the philosophy of

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exercise is you counteract this by

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in restoring those loads on bone making

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people lift weights etc but the weight

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machine in these early missions was a

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very limited functionality you couldn't

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lift very much you couldn't do very much

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with it and in 2008 they lofted a

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monster of a machine called the advanced

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resistance exercise device or a red and

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this thing allowed for 600 pound loads

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you know tremendous flexibility it was a

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more reliable system and so they

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undertook a study of if you do this

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very high intensity resistance exercise

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would it have benefits from for bone if

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it were combined with

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very good nutrition because one of the

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things that was found in the early

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astronauts was that they just did not

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get enough of their daily energy or

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protein requirements that this was

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important for bone loss

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a study was done on five astronauts who

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exercised on this a-red device and you

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know had carefully monitored nutritional

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status where they got everything they

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needed in terms of energy protein other

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nutrients and it was found that their

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bone density loss appeared to be less

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than the previous crews of the space

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station as well as the mirror crews and

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that

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in fact

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you know this could potentially

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be

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successful as a counter measure i mean

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those were only five

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data points but it was very encouraging

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it fills in the overall clinical picture

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and gives an important data point

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because really to

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develop

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medicines to treat

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osteoporosis and to understand which of

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these medicines to use and to understand

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for example this is a question of

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physical activity bone changes when

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the load on bone is increased so for

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example when our astronauts returned

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having lost a lot of bone and then they

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recovered and

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their

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bone size increased it tells us a lot

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about how bone responds to mechanical

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loading

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it gives us information about how bone

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might respond to exercise

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about what might happen to individuals

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who have been for a long period of time

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in bed rest or who have been otherwise

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sedentary but who become mobilized again

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and so it's information

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that can be used to develop a better

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picture in clinical research

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and in understanding how people with

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different conditions recover from those

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conditions

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nasa has been in has been working very

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hard on developing countermeasures to

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bone loss so i think the main importance

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of our results for nasa were to really

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illustrate

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that okay

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folks could come back and they could

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recover their bone mass

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but their bone structure was

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irretrievably changed to look like

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something of the structure associated

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with increased age so that in fact with

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these changes people might have the

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skeletons of an older person and decades

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down the line might have

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you know poor skeletal health as a