http://polyscience.org/2005/07/diabetes-stem-cells-osteoporosis/ Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:47:49 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 http://polyscience.org/2005/07/diabetes-stem-cells-osteoporosis/comment-page-1/#comment-87 polyscience.org » 748 days in space Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:17:09 +0000 http://polyscience.org/?p=33#comment-87 [...] Perhaps the biggest, most immediate health concern is over the density of his bones. Even with methods in place to reduce bone density loss, astronauts and cosmonauts lose an average of 1.5% of their bone density for every month they are in space, and he’s been there for almost 25 months, and it will be 27 months by the time he finally comes back home. The average post-menopausal woman loses about 1.5% of her bone density per year. So in theory if he were a post-menopausal woman, Krikalev will have lost the equivalent of 27 years of bone density when he comes back to Earth. Growing bone-mass back can be achieved, but it is a long process, and it is unknown how the quality of bone mass compares to that which was lost. Recall that bone marrow turns into fat as people age, and Krikalev has done quite a bit of aging in the last 2 years. I wonder if astronauts and/or cosmonauts take any osteoporosis drugs like Fosamax or Actonel? Hrm. I wonder who I could ask that would know… [...] [...] Perhaps the biggest, most immediate health concern is over the density of his bones. Even with methods in place to reduce bone density loss, astronauts and cosmonauts lose an average of 1.5% of their bone density for every month they are in space, and he’s been there for almost 25 months, and it will be 27 months by the time he finally comes back home. The average post-menopausal woman loses about 1.5% of her bone density per year. So in theory if he were a post-menopausal woman, Krikalev will have lost the equivalent of 27 years of bone density when he comes back to Earth. Growing bone-mass back can be achieved, but it is a long process, and it is unknown how the quality of bone mass compares to that which was lost. Recall that bone marrow turns into fat as people age, and Krikalev has done quite a bit of aging in the last 2 years. I wonder if astronauts and/or cosmonauts take any osteoporosis drugs like Fosamax or Actonel? Hrm. I wonder who I could ask that would know… [...]

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