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Air travel isn't always easy, let alone space travel. Astronauts often suffer from weak bones and muscle wasting during the months they live in zero gravity in space, and people on Earth also suffer from bone fragility and muscle weakness as they age, which increases their risks. For injuries when falling.

A study conducted in 2022 on osteoporosis in 17 astronauts who traveled aboard the International Space Station, on missions lasting between 4 to 7 months, indicated that the astronauts suffered from the loss of “important masses of bone” during Space flights lasted 6 months, and the study showed that the astronauts lost 2.1% of mineral density (such as calcium) in one of the bones of the lower leg, and bone strength decreased by 1.3%.

Doctors are working to discover how to reduce muscle wasting, a condition that space explorers are exposed to, as well as the elderly on planet Earth.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando have received funding from the state to collaborate with the biotechnology company Vaxinity, in order to develop vaccines that can prevent and alleviate muscle and bone weakness, which is a common health problem among people who experience long-term space travel. In addition to the elderly.

Research aims to produce a vaccine that can help reduce muscle atrophy, or help restore muscle mass in the event of injury, inability to move, or when traveling in space.

The vaccine could help people living on Earth, or on space travel, lead better and healthier lives, according to Dr. Melanie Kuthup and Dr. Michal Masternack, professors who worked at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and participated in the study. In joint research.

Take more trips

Lou Rees, co-founder and CEO of Vaxinity, explains that if all goes well, clinical trials (on humans) of vaccines on humans could begin as early as 2025.

A vaccine that helps stop or limit the deterioration of bones and muscles could also help enable more space exploration trips.

Dr. Kuthub says that the vaccine “opens up a whole new opportunity to think, to strive to reach a type of solution that can be presented, and to try to learn as well, because what happens in this extreme environment (space) is different from what happens on Earth.”

While Dr. Masternak says that the US Space Agency (NASA) intends to send astronauts again on a mission to the moon in 2025, and if the United States wants to send space missions to longer distances such as Mars, finding ways to reduce Deterioration of bones and muscles will be a key issue in reducing some of the health problems associated with spaceflight.

Kuthob confirms that "there is a lot of interest, on the part of many people, working in this sector to develop new discoveries that can give a health boost to astronauts and also to the inhabitants of Earth."

NASA data indicates that astronauts exercise for two hours a day on average, to reduce the deterioration of bones and muscles resulting from lack of gravity, and it says that without these exercises, astronauts will not be able to walk or stand when they return to Earth after Months pass.

Source: German