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a cardiovascular disease is uh all too

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common here on earth claiming more than

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six hundred thousand limes a year but on

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board the international space station

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there's an experiment underway studying

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the cardiovascular systems of the

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station crew members this experiment is

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called cardio ox and could lead to

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important information that will benefit

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future long-duration space travelers as

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well as people who never leave the

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planet

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from the marshall space flight center in

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huntsville alabama my colleague lori

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meigs reports on a recent trip to the

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cardiovascular lab here at jsc in

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it doesn't sound pretty but stewart lee

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tells me it's something that we really

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need to investigate tell us what we're

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studying so our objective to understand

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the effects of space flight on the

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cardiovascular system and in this

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particular case we're interested in the

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effects of space flight on cardiac

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health and specifically in the arteries

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that supply our heart and the rest of

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our body so do the

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the does a space flight environment

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promote a

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environment within the body which might

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you know increase the progression of

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atherosclerosis have we done this before

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and what is atherosclerosis i don't know

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that i can even say it right so

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atherosclerosis is what most people

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refer to as hardening the arteries so

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it's it's the normal progression that

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the body goes through of a

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uh essentially

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moving

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lipids into the into the the walls of

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the of the vessels

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which in some cases in extreme cases

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would lead to a heart attack and can you

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show me how it works i i think i want to

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be a test subject yeah this is a great

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opportunity for you to see a little bit

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about what we do in the laboratory and

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experience it for yourself

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so i feel like i'm giving blood steward

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what's happening now so you're not

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actually giving blood but we're going to

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measure the blood flow in your arm

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and so the

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uh some of the effects of of

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cardiovascular disease is it changes the

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way your blood vessels react to changes

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in flow

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as as you need to increase flow in

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different parts your body you want your

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blood vessels to be able to dilate and

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so that's what this experiment is all

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about

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what we're doing is we're going to

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measure

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the blood flow in your arm

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at rest so what it would normally be

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just when you're when you're laying here

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then we're going to include the blood

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flow on the bottom part of your arm

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what that does is it creates a metabolic

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stress on the bottom part of your arm so

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your your body wants to get blood flowed

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to that part of your your arm so we

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normally leave that cuff on for five

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minutes and then we release the cuff

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and that causes that rush of blood into

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the lower part of your arm and so your

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as i mentioned the artery in your arm

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measuring the brachial artery right now

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should

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extra blood

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if there's problems with the function of

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in the artery we won't see that

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expansion and that lack of expansion or

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dilation of the vessel is indicative of

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of

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to atherosclerosis

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this is a surrogate essentially because

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we we can't do this in your heart

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it's not not very much fun

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they do do it clinically but we wanted

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to do it non-invasively so we're using

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the brachial artery as a surrogate for

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the for the coronary arteries in your

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heart so what are we learning from this

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so

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the idea is we're trying to understand

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whether our crew members whether we're

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putting that an increased risk for

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cardiovascular disease specifically

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atherosclerosis as a the result of the

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space flight environment

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then that when they go into on orbit

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i mean they're older individuals so

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they're in the 40 to 50 year old range

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so they're already starting to show

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signs in a normal population they would

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be showing signs of atherosclerosis

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but you know are we are we accelerating

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that process by exposing them to

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radiation changes in their diet

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additional psychological stress

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anything like that which we would

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normally associate as a risk factor

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on the ground for development of

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cardiovascular disease question is does

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the space flight environment make that

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worse

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do you think there are stresses uh more

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with space flight that that could lead

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to cardiovascular disease so we don't

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think there's anything that happens in

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flight like we're not expecting a crew

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member to have a heart attack just

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because they go into space

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but we're concerned is the long-term

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health effects you know the occupational

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health outcomes

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and so

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you know one of the big issues um that

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we're anticipating is based on some

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pilot data that was collected in another

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laboratory that the

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amount of oxidative stress

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and inflammation appears to increase

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with space flight and those are the

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precursors to atherosclerosis those are

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usually the first steps to the

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development of of changes in what we

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call hardening of the arteries or

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or plaque development but those are

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usually over short you know long periods

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of time where we're looking at

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a snapshot during space flight

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but we're also then following the crew

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members for five years after they come

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back so we get a you know a more

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long-term picture of of their

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cardiovascular health

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so is this strictly for space flight or

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will this have earth applications what

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we learn so the the procedures that

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we're using in this experiment actually

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are used clinically to to track the

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progression of atherosclerosis in some

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individuals it's used in multiple

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studies

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looking at you know population-wide

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changes

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uh

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the effectiveness of different

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interventions to prevent atherosclerosis

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and so it's it's not something that

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we're actually doing at the opposite

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we're taking

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a a technology that's normally used on

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the ground we're taking it to space to

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study our astronauts

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and you're also part of the twin study

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too right exactly right so we're we're

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we're afforded a very unique

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opportunity to study the twins

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um the advantage of obviously studying

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twins is you're essentially studying the

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same person on the ground and on orbit

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and so now we can see you know in this

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particular case to scott react

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differently than mark as a result of

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being in space for a year

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do you mean that they laid here and went

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through this like i have too oh yes

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they've both been in here for this

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experiment

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they're very excited to see our our

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results uh it learns they learn

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something about themselves in the

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process and of course the other part of

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the the twin study is that we're teaming

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up with group

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specifically in our area with uh for

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group from uc san diego and we're

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looking at the genetic profiling and how

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the changes in space flight or how

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spaceflight might change the way that

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our genes are expressed and then how

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that

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in turn results or might be related to

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changes in the way your body responds to

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to stresses like this

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so that's it what am i going to learn

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from this

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well we learn a little bit about the

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atherosclerosis and we're going to learn

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a little bit about how not just how it

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applies to our astronauts but also how

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it might be indicative of changes in our

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you know the normal population on earth