{"id":18086,"date":"2019-04-11T23:02:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T15:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/full-findings-from-nasa-twins-study-raise-more-questions-about-long-stints-in-space\/"},"modified":"2019-04-11T23:02:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T15:02:47","slug":"full-findings-from-nasa-twins-study-raise-more-questions-about-long-stints-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/full-findings-from-nasa-twins-study-raise-more-questions-about-long-stints-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Full findings from NASA \u2018Twins Study\u2019 raise more questions about long stints in space"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_404964\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-404964\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-404964\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180315-kellys-630x504.jpg\" alt=\"Mark and Scott Kelly\" width=\"630\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180315-kellys-630x504.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180315-kellys-768x615.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180315-kellys.jpg 1041w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-404964\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The genetic and health profiles of Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly were compared during a \u201cTwins Study\u201d focusing on the effects of long-term spaceflight. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ten research teams today shared comprehensive scientific results from an unprecedented experiment to gauge the health differences that developed between an astronaut who spent nearly a year in space and his identical twin down on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published in the journal Science, traces the results of DNA tests and analyses of biological samples from Scott Kelly, who took on the 340-day mission on the International Space Station in 2015-2016; and from his brother Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who underwent parallel tests on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the findings have been previously reported, but today\u2019s open-access research paper and supporting materials provided broader context for the NASA Twins Study \u2014 and pointed to concerns that are likely to be addressed in future space experiments.<\/p>\n<p>Previous reports have noted that Scott Kelly experienced changes in his medical condition during his long stint in space, but that most of those changes were reversed after his return. For example, the makeup of Scott\u2019s gut microbiome shifted, perhaps due to a change in diet, and then shifted back after his flight.<\/p>\n<p>Patterns of gene expression also changed, particularly in genetic regions associated with the immune system and DNA repair. More than 90 percent of those changes reversed themselves, but some of the changes persisted six months after Scott\u2019s landing. (The genes themselves weren\u2019t altered, only the patterns of which genes were switched on or off.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Three Key Findings from NASA's Twins Study\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hU0cD3kWnKY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The detailed findings highlight some concerns about long-lasting effects of long-term spaceflight. Scott\u2019s exposure to radiation in space, for example, led to minor mutations in his chromosomes. \u201cSome of the chromosome rearrangements that we saw, particularly inversions, were persistent,\u201d Susan Bailey, a radiation biologist at Colorado State University, acknowledged during a teleconference.<\/p>\n<p>Another genetic change had to do with the length of Scott\u2019s telomeres \u2014 that is, the molecular end caps on his chromosomes. They\u2019ve been compared to the protective ends on shoelaces, and they tend to get shorter as a person ages.<\/p>\n<p>Geneticists were intrigued to find that Scott\u2019s telomeres actually lengthened during his spaceflight, but became shorter when he was back on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we looked at individual telomere length and distributions, he did have many more short telomeres after flight than he did before,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cSo in that sense, or from the perspective of aging and health risks, that could be where he might be at increased risk for \u2026 cardiovascular disease, for example, or some types of cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The shape of Scott\u2019s eyeballs changed in weightlessness, leading to the types of vision problems that have been found among male astronauts (but not so much among female astronauts).<\/p>\n<p>Scott also registered a slight loss in cognitive abilities when he returned to Earth, although it\u2019s not clear whether that\u2019s related to long-term spaceflight. The researchers suspected that it\u2019s more likely the result of the added stress he experienced as he readjusted to earthly routines. The now-retired astronaut has acknowledged that it took at least six months for him to readjust fully.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Living and Working in Space: Twins Study\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c9moR-KQpDQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The researchers cautioned against reading too much into their study.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re only studying an n of one \u2014 in other words, there\u2019s just one twin pair here \u2014 and we\u2019re not corroborating the results in this study by looking at other astronauts,\u201d said Andy Feinberg, director of the Center for Epigenetics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the lead investigators on the Twins Study.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, the findings point to issues that will have to be resolved as NASA plans for trips beyond Earth orbit, to the moon, Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to these results serving as a guide and foundation for future studies and things we need to be aware of and look at in astronauts in upcoming longer-duration missions [going] deeper and deeper in space,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n<p>In a commentary published by Science, the University of Darmstadt\u2019s Markus L\u00f6brich and the University of Sussex\u2019s Penny Jeggo said studying the health impacts of long-term spaceflight, particularly exposure to space radiation, should be a high priority. The newly published study \u201crepresents more than one small step for mankind in this endeavor,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"name\">Francine Garrett-Bakelman of the University of Virginia School of Medicine is the lead author of the study published in Science, <\/span>\u201cThe NASA Twins Study: A Multidimensional Analysis of a Year-Long Human Spaceflight.\u201d More than 80 other researchers are co-authors.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The genetic and health profiles of Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly were compared during a \u201cTwins Study\u201d focusing on the effects of long-term spaceflight. (NASA Photo) Ten research teams today shared comprehensive scientific results from an unprecedented experiment to gauge the health differences that developed between an astronaut who spent nearly a year in space [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5030,5031,717,4913,5032,5033,190,4895,3726,21],"class_list":["post-18086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-a-year-in-space","tag-genetics","tag-international-space-station","tag-life-in-space","tag-mark-kelly","tag-medicine","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-scott-kelly","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}