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Medicines Lose Effectiveness In Space
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at the Johnson Space Center have shown that the effectiveness of drugs declines more rapidly in space. Engineers are working on a project which could bring space travel to the general public but experiments suggest that the health hazards facing astronauts may be greater than previously thought. Astronauts on long space missions may not be able to take paracetamol to treat a headache or antibiotics to fight infection, a study has found. I wonder if diseases are also affected?"
From TFA:
The research team investigated whether the unique environment of space - including radiation, excessive vibrations, microgravity, a carbon dioxide rich environment and variations in humidity and temperature - affected drugs' effectiveness.
How about putting them in a box?
Apart from radiation I don't see how the other environmental issues are unique to space.
How would microgravity affect chemical compounds? We've known for a while about bone decalcification and muscle atrophy but I always ascribed such things to the fact that astronauts aren't standing on solid ground or exercising as they are on Earth. It's not as though the proteins and whatnot in their bodies are discombobulating while they're up there, is it?
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
what about low Gravity like the moon and mars?
this may make having people there long term alot harder.
space tourism is will supposedly become a reality in the next few years thanks to sir richard branson and virgin galactic. What about those people who are on anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, ritalin, etc? Will they be banned for the protection of the spacecraft, themselves, and everyone in it? Considering how many people are on medication these days, I suspect this would significantly restrict the number of eligible passengers
i thought it was implied in the summary, but to make sure I read TFA and just as I thought: the article refers to degradation of drugs in storage, not to being less effective in the body. So, your theory, while nice, is irrelevant in this case.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
For those of us wondering, here in the United States.
With 50 years of manned spaceflight, presumably carefully watched-over by physicians, how could this possibly be news?
If we're talking about those little white pills, they're basically just a solid mix of medicine and some sort of binder usually packed in one of those foil/plastic packages that at least looks to be airtight, right? So logically it must be radiation, but how could you easily shield against the kind of radiation that would penetrate into the station's interior? Medicine storage crates with thick lead lining?
Emotions! In your brain!
If you're going on a long space trip, what are you going to get sick from? If everyone on board is still healthy after a week or so, you're all set. Outer space contains far less microbes and viruses than the typical earthly supermarket, afaik.
You're in space. If you haven't gotten the infection before you came on, you're not going to get sick from the microbes in space. You're pretty much in a quarantined area.
Granted if you have say heart problems you might need your pills, but otherwise there's no real bacteria to worry about.
A: At least one is.
Salmonella in Space Get Even Nastier
http://www.space.com/6481-salmonella-space-nastier.html
- highly sophisticated filtering systems | CO2 recylcing | UV-light ( for killing germs ) | water treatment ( preventing water from getting brackish)
by this -> a decline or thinning out of the variaty of germs
recent research indicates that having a cleaned/near sterile living area makes people more susceptible to allergy, perhaps similar effects happen could happen ..
in space also
- biological experiments conducted in space ( bacterial cultures )
I will purposefully refrain from reading the article you linked to, so that I can put forth the image of vomit and sudden outbursts of diarrhea being nastier in zero gravity.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
And that makes me think of the wet burp:
Space Beer Reaches for Final Frontier
http://news.discovery.com/space/space-beer-reaches-final-frontier-110303.html
Surely any beer can be consumed in space, right? Wrong. Not only would the launch costs be astronomical to get a crate of Stella into orbit, it's a physical impracticality to consume any carbonated beverage in space.
Why? Zero-G has a rather nasty side effect of the "wet burp" phenomenon.
Think about it, what happens when you swallow a mouthful of beer on Earth? It goes down your throat and sits in your stomach. Gravity ensures the fluid stays in your stomach, allowing the carbon dioxide bubbles to expand and rise to the top of the fluid. You can then sit back and let out an impressive burp to impress your friends as the carbon dioxide is vented out of your mouth.
Now try doing that in space.
There's little gravity to keep the fluid in your stomach, but you still need to vent that carbon dioxide that is expanding inside your belly. You try to burp.... but you end up venting the carbon dioxide, beer, and whatever else was inside your stomach through your mouth and nose. This, my friends, is called a "wet burp"; an explosive near-vomit experience guaranteed to gross out anyone who has the misfortune to be floating around with you.
Radiation and other such environmental factor certainly would affect the "shelf life" and effectiveness of all molecular compounds., so in this case packaging and storage would have to be controlled. Apart from these concerns the way molecules travel through the GI tract, the blood stream , the blood brain barrier and in fact all cells is most likely affected by gravity, so that micro gravity certainly would cause these factors to be different and likely produce unpredictable results. It should also be noted that drug metabolism and cell signaling pathways are also likely affected by microgravity and increased CO2 levels.
The simple answer is that we just don't know because the data set is very limited. The real solution would be to do more research in these environments because it is just as likely that while negative effects may be observed positive beneficial results are just as likely and may lead to a new and fundamentally different understanding of drug and cellular function.
perhaps they should re-evaluate the effectiveness of Paracetamol on earth first.. That crap has never done squat for any of my headaches ever*. Curse the Reye Syndrome scare of my childhood making my parents think that Tylenol was the only safe pain reliever when I was a kid. Safe, perhaps, but useless. Also, from what I've read.. It's really not that safe, either...
*yes, I realize this has a sample size of one person (though many headaches...). Can anyone say it's worked for them?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Ok, then just take acetaminophen instead!
We get it, you're european. Very trendy. Couldn't you have just said "aspirin" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Give 'em a tube of chicken soup, they'll be alright.
Give em a marijuana brownie for anything not covered by the soup.
Quit worrying about it.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Who exactly are astronauts in space going to contract an infection from? How did Captain James T. Kirk solve the problem of space-acquired STDs?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Yes. Some bacteria become mor virulent when incubated in a microgravity environment.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
A lot of the Russian experience, at least when I was active in Space Station stuff and the Russians were still flying Mir, had small populations, n=1-5. You cannot draw significant conclusions very easily from samples that small.
Electrophoresis is a reasonable drug delivery system for SOME agents, but not all.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
So what are they saying, that gravity is actually the best antibiotic? In that case, we should all move to Jupiter.
Tired of spending so much money on the drugs that keep you healthy? Buy half as much and then relax in our therapeutic centrifuge for double the drugs effects!
Is this study funded by pharmaceutical companies ?
It must be. When NASA astronauts have a headache, they are prescribed paracetamol which cost millions of dollars to develop. Russian cosmonauts, when faced with the same problem, use a pencil.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Yea, because willow bark tea is so high-tech.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
In the wake of the recent events in Japan, I've been reviewing serious information on radiation dosage and effects such as that at http://mitnse.com/.
That's gotten me to think further on a rarely-mentioned impact on astronaut health, and that's the "risk" of persistently higher levels of radiation - it seems that in actuality persistently higher radiation exposures (up to 200x normal background levels, for example) actually INCREASE human health (to a point, obviously), and extend lifespan.
(Notice no mention of this in popular media accounts of the effects of radiation...http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/16/health/la-he-japan-quake-radiation-20110316)
I would just find it ironic that if, after so much concern for the health and safety of astronauts in regards to radiation, that we might find that they are healthier and live longer than we poor terrestrials.
-Styopa
Guys are sooo looking forward to PMS in space...
Evaluation of Physical and Chemical Changes in Pharmaceuticals Flown on Space Missions
Brian Du1, Vernie R. Daniels1, Zalman Vaksman2, Jason L. Boyd3, Camille Crady1 and Lakshmi Putcha4
Abstract
Efficacy and safety of medications used for the treatment of astronauts in space may be compromised by altered stability in space. We compared physical and chemical changes with time in 35 formulations contained in identical pharmaceutical kits stowed on the International Space Station (ISS) and on Earth. Active pharmaceutical content (API) was determined by ultra- and high-performance liquid chromatography after returning to Earth. After stowage for 28 months in space, six medications aboard the ISS and two of matching ground controls exhibited changes in physical variables; nine medications from the ISS and 17 from the ground met the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) acceptance criteria for API content after 28 months of storage. A higher percentage of medications from each flight kit had lower API content than the respective ground controls. The number of medications failing API requirement increased as a function of time in space, independent of expiration date. The rate of degradation was faster in space than on the ground for many of the medications, and most solid dosage forms met USP standard for dissolution after storage in space. Cumulative radiation dose was higher and increased with time in space, whereas temperature and humidity remained similar to those on the ground. Exposure to the chronic low dose of ionizing radiation aboard the spacecraft as well as repackaging of solid dosage forms in flight-specific dispensers may adversely affect stability of pharmaceuticals. Characterization of degradation profiles of unstable formulations and identification of chemical attributes of stability in space analog environments on Earth will facilitate development of space-hardy medications.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/61047706rj720h76/fulltext.html