Apollo Lunar Astronauts Show Higher Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Possible Deep Space Radiation Effects on the Vascular Endothelium

Recent research led by Dr. Michael Delp and his team at Florida State University, along with colleagues from NASA's Johnson Space Center and the University of California Irvine, has uncovered some intriguing findings about astronaut health during space missions on the Moon. The study focused on Apollo lunar mission astronauts who showed a higher rate of death due to cardiovascular diseases compared to people living in similar environments back on Earth. The researchers wanted to understand if exposure to deep-space radiation could be harming their hearts and blood vessels, so they looked at the effects this might have had during moonwalks by Apollo astronauts. They found that when muscle feed arteries from these lunar explorers were tested in a lab setting on Earth (using substances like potass01 to mimic stress), their responses differed slightly compared to controls, but not significantly enough to explain the higher mortality rates observed among astronauts.

The research conducted by Delp et al., published as a study on the Apollo Lunar Astronauts, investigates potential links between space radiation exposure and increased cardiovascular disease mortality among astronauts. The methodology employed in this investigation involved examining endothelial function within gastrocnemius muscle feed arteries of mice subjected to various conditions: high-dose (HU), total body irradiation (TBI), and combined HU + TBI, using a combination of biochemical assays. The key findings from this study revealed that exposure to space radiation may have detrimental effects on the vascsular endothelium in mice models by altering nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD -1) and NADPH oxidase-2 (NOX -2) protein levels.