NASA-Funded Study on Women
“Until we completed this study, we had no solid research on how women would adapt to long durations in space,” Scott Trappe said, the director of Ball State’s Human Performance Lab. “This information should have a dramatic impact for NASA in the coming years.”
A study funded by NASA shows that women on bed-rest could be helped by intensive and short exercises, in addition to female astronauts on space missions of long-duration. Not only will the women stay stronger, but they will also be able to recuperate at a faster rate than those without the designated exercises. Located at Ball State University, Muncie, Ind., this is the first comprehensive bed rest study that focuses entirely on women.
The study will assist NASA to develop “more effective countermeasures to mitigate strength and muscle loss in female astronauts.” The main focus was for long-duration missions to the International Space Station, and eventually to the planet Mars, but another side focus was bed-bound women on Earth because of many things—illness, injury, or pregnancy. Carl Walz, former long-duration astronaut in addition to NASA’s head for advanced capabilities division in the agency’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Washington, feels that it is important to look at how women and man are affected by space travel in different ways—microgravity, radiation, and other factors.
The Human Performance Lab at Ball State has been working with NASA for over ten years in order to examine how spaceflight effects humans. Prior to the newly completed study on women and exercise, there had been no solid research on women in regard to space duration. In the study, 24 females were examined to determine whether “specific exercise regimens or nutritional supplements” could prevent the loss of lower body muscle mass and strength.” Part of the exercise regime was to spend 60 days on bed rest, with each women laying with their heads pointing downward at a 6-degree angle. The purpose of this was to simulate the weightless conditions of space.
Another group was put on a high-protein diet rich in the amino acid, leucine, while another group was a control group with no exercise or dietary limitations. “When we looked at these women after two months, the difference in the physical condition among the three groups was undeniable,” Trappe said. “The women who did not exercise lost nearly half their strength in some cases. What’s more, the group who ate a high-protein diet but did not exercise lost even more muscle mass than the control group.”
The study exercise included an exercise that was a 40 to 50 minute aerobic workout for about two or three minutes a day, with a 20-minute strength training exercise to or three days a week. A multitude set of thigh and calf exercises while using a flywheel device was utilized, while also working out on a vertical treadmill. According to NASA, “Using a magnetic resonance imaging device, or MRI, researchers measured muscle mass in all of the study subjects after the 60-day period. They found that women in the control group lost 21 percent of the muscle mass in their quadriceps, and the nutrition group lost more than 24 percent, but the exercise group lost none. Results were similar for MRI scans of the calf muscle.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
