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anyone who has ever

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suffered from back pain knows that it

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can be debilitating

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it turns out unfortunately that

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suffering back pain is not just a thing

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for those of us who are stuck on earth

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there are many long duration space

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station crew members who have complained

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of back pain during and after their

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space flights

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the good news is there is an experiment

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now underway that's looking into the

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cause my colleague lori meggs is at the

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marshall space flight center with more

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on some early results from the inter

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as kids are heading back to school we

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start thinking about those heavy

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backpacks they'll be carrying and how

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they could hurt their backs it's much

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the same for soldiers who have to carry

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heavy armor and equipment well a similar

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thing happens to astronauts when they

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return to earth they either return with

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back pain some even return with back

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injuries dr alan hargens a professor of

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orthopedic surgery at the university of

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california san diego is studying

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astronauts before and after flight to

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see why this is happening and what can

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be done about it to help even us here on

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earth

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so we're trying to understand what

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happens to the discs and the other

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spinal

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structures that are around the discs

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to help us understand

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why

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astronauts have

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back pain after flight and also

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herniation of their discs after flight

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that's odd right because there's no

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i guess weight-bearing they're just

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weightless floating around what

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yeah so when they're in space we think

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that the

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spine is very inactive

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it's not not like getting up in the

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morning

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getting out of

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bed and having to bear weight

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during the whole

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it has very little lows on it so what

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we're finding for example is there's a

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lot of muscle atrophy around the

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lumbar spine and also the cervical spine

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or the neck

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so how does this relate to folks on

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earth i'm sure

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you're

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just as much interested in helping

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problems

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on earth as as finding out what's going

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on with the astronauts so we think this

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applies to children who go to school

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with very heavy

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backpacks it's like an astronaut coming

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back from space and suddenly has a big

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load on their spine

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scott kelly back on mother earth after

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340 days in space

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so we are looking at the effect of

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these high backpack loads that the kids

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have when they go to school and how that

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affects their spine

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and also soldiers who wear heavy body

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armor

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and also heavy backpacks

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they have a lot of back problems

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after they have this exposure

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what have you found

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so

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i think the most important things that

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we have found is that there's a lot of

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muscle atrophy in the spine

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despite the fact that the astronauts are

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getting heavy exercise for example from

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the advanced resistive exercise

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device

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right now

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there's really no exercises as far as i

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know for the neck muscles so

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the neck muscles are

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losing even more muscle and they're

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recovering more

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slowly after space flight

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than the lumbar spine

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so once you get out of your subjects

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tested what do you think will happen you

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think this is going to continue that way

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do you think it's um it differs from

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person to person or do you think it

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there's a definite constant

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so what we're finding is is about half

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of the astronauts have significant back

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pain after their space flight

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so we're

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trying to develop better countermeasures

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to maintain the spine

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in space