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the international space station is home

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to many experiments that are looking

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into how the weightless environment in

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low earth orbit impacts the human body

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this is with an eye toward resolving the

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issues that could affect explorers on

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long journeys well beyond earth in the

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future

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one such experiment which is focusing on

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stiffening of the astronauts arteries is

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known as vascular echo and this morning

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we're going to find out more about it

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from the principal investigator dr

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richard hewson of the schlegel

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university of waterloo research

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institute for aging in waterloo ontario

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canada good morning sir

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good morning pat dr houston let me start

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by setting some of the groundwork for me

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tell me what is it that causes arteries

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to stiffen and and what is the the

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problem with that from a health

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standpoint

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okay well on on earth i think we all

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know about arteries getting stiff as we

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as we age

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and

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the problems there are somewhat

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different from space flight

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some of the causes we can talk about in

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a second might be similar though um

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people with hypertension

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but also as we age on earth are the

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elasticity in our arteries the elastic

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tissue starts to break down that causes

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stiffness when you get stiffer arteries

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unfortunately it doesn't buffer the

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energy that's put into the blood as it

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as it's being ejected from the heart

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so if it doesn't buffer that energy that

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energy gets transmitted into the into

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some of the smaller blood vessels and

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especially the brain and the kidney

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where they're very high flow organs

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you don't have

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that buffering and you get a real high

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impact of that energy on the smaller

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blood vessels it starts causing damage

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can lead to problems

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up to and including dementia and perhaps

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alzheimer's is part of that as well

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um but certainly there you know you can

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have a lot of damage to these these

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organs if you have that lifelong

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exposure

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now astronauts are relatively healthy

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and relatively young in fact

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how does an expert on aging get

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interested in using astronauts as

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research subjects in this area

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well i guess it really goes back to my

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interest in the benefits of physical

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activity

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and ever since the shuttle days when

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astronauts often went up for you know

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maybe a week or two at a time

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and many of them were unable to perform

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really more than very minimal activity

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up there exercise that's you know

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because otherwise they're floating

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around in the in the uh in the shuttle

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or in the space station now

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so

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that the level of activity is greatly

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reduced compared to what we do here on

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earth when we have to work against

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gravity

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so

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if you take away the daily physical

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activity and you now have them

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floating

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when you introduce exercise the question

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is is that enough

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the answer that we've come up with we

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just finished the study that was called

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vascular before the vascular echo study

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and in vascular um we documented that

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astronauts are actually doing only about

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30 minutes per day of aerobic type of

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exercise plus what they do on the on the

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a red

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and

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we know on earth now there are many

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studies starting to appear

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showing that if you went to the gym in

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the morning but then sat at your

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computer for the rest of the day and did

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no physical activity

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you do start showing signs of

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um

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signs of change that include arterial

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stiffness also include insulin

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resistance

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and the potential for developing

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type 2 diabetes

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so inside the vascular study

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we also measured insulin resistance and

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documented that astronauts do have an

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increase in insulin resistance

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now they're not type 2 diabetics by any

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means but they're going in that

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direction and showing us just how

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important daily physical activities

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really are

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so in this case what is it that you're

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having the astronauts do in order to

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gather data to assist this research

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okay and in the vascular echo study we

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are collecting some blood samples so we

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can look at those biomarkers but the

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major focus is on using ultrasound

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technology to look at the arteries

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we also look at veins and the heart but

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the focus on the arteries we

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we can image the artery as it's

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expanding with each heartbeat

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and we can determine is it expanding as

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much for a change in blood pressure or

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less

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and certainly in the vascular study we

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saw that it was expanding less

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so it has a stiffer artery

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and we're we're really focusing in on

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the

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primary

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place that we expect to see this

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the reason for that um i mentioned

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earlier hypertension well astronauts are

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in effect hypertensive from their heart

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up to their head

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um you know as you and i are sitting

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here right now the blood pressure up in

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our head is as much as 30 millimeters of

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mercury less than it is at heart level

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because of gravity because of gravity

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yes because you're having to pump up

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against gravity so the hydrostatic

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takes away some of the pressure as it's

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going up

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in space that pressure stays the same

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throughout the body

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up to the head all day long 24 hours a

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day so so they are in effect and

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hypertensive

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in the in the head region compared to

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what we normally experience on earth

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so are there any initial thoughts about

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uh

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about the ways that this arterial

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stiffening can be prevented for

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astronauts that which in fact might be

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able to help the rest of us too

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yeah the

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um well there's not much they can do

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about that change in the hydrostatic

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pressures their blood pressure in the

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head is going to be higher

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physical activity

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um

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30 minutes per day

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in one session

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probably is not enough so you know if

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you start talking about exploratory

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missions back to the moon and to mars

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people are going to have to exercise

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more frequently throughout the day

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and we hope that that's going to be of

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some benefit

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mean nutrition is perhaps a thing that

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can be worried about as well

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certainly the

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you know the the insulin resistance that

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we detected

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could mean that high glucose levels are

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happening if you have high glucose

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levels you can have

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formation of

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cross bridges inside the

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vascular smooth muscles

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walls

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and those cross bridges

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can introduce stiffening so we want to

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try to avoid that so again you know the

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best we can do is to sort of maintain