Brain Stem Cells killed by Space Radiation

A lot of the concepts surrounding that of anti-aging first involves protecting and conserving what the body has left to the best of your ability and secondly attempting to regenerate and increase the number of functionally productive living cells in the desired tissues and organs.

In a previous blog entry, I described a face cream by Dior (Capture) which promises to protect and nourish the remaining stem cells one has left in wrinkled skin. If you are a frequent long-haul air traveller (Richard Quest please take note), you might wish to give a small thought to this rather esoteric but possibly significant research study -which was conducted by the researchers at Cold Spring Harbor, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Kennedy Space Center and the University of Florida- published the the Journal of Experimental Neurology.

For those of us who spend enough time in the airplane and feel that we could have reached Mars and back, we might wish to consider plausible types of protection for the stem cells in our brain responsible for learning and memory.

In the preparative research for the proposed next NASA project to put a man on Mars, scientists conducted an experiment with mice where a single dose of radiation was administered considered to be equivalent to the amount an astronaut might be exposed to during a 3 year space voyage to Mars and back. What they found was that the radiation particularly affected the stem cells in the region of the hippocampus.


"We are going to have to rethink our understanding of stem cell susceptibility to radiation, including cosmic radiation encountered during space travel, as well as radiation doses that accompany different medical procedures," said Professor Dennis Steindler of the University of Florida, co-investigator of the study.


WHAT IS COSMIC RADIATION AND IS IT SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT?

Well, this really depends on how much long haul, high altitude flying you get to do as part of your job. Air crew and presumably flight military will be subjected to the highest amounts of exposure. Background cosmic radiation at ground level have been established at 2-3 mSv (microSievert) which is considered natural exposure. In the plane, higher altitudes reduces the protective layers in the atmosphere which shield most of the cosmic radiation and thus cosmic radiation exposure is increased. If you'd like to have an indication of cosmic radiation levels during flight, have a look at this table on the WHO site. (Note: if you're flying the A380 long distance at 43,000 feet, you'll need to double the figures up by 2)

As a result of this, aircrew are now monitored and their time tables adjusted accordingly to ensure that they do not exceed the recommended dose. The WHO and the UK Department for Transport also does not recommend pregnant air stewardesses to work on flights due to the exposure to the unborn child.

Or we can live near the equator where cosmic radiation is reduced by half.



HOW CAN WE PROTECT OUR STEM CELLS FROM COSMIC RADIATION?

Come to think of it, maybe those Imperial Stormtroopers might have been wearing reasonable looking outfits for the fight and flights through space to protect their cells. Ridiculous as it may have been (note that Luke and Leia never wore any type of helmet or protective outfit) astronauts going out on a space walk have to put up with much more cumbersome outfits due to the numerous protective layers.

A CHALLENGE FOR SPACE BIOENGINEERS AND PHYSICISTS

NASA engineering scientists are working on new materials and polymers which confer more protection and estimate that a new spacesuit which will be worn by the super-fit astronauts on Mars will be as light as 21 Kg and comprise of 12 different layers.

Better shielding on spacecrafts are also on the way (using water as an absorbent material) and hopefully, some of this technology will also filter down for use in commercial flights so that we can reduce our cancer risk (bad enough already) and retain as many hippocampal stem cells as possible.

As for the rest of us who are already losing our memory and learning capabilities due to cosmic radiation, we'll have to see about how to potentially replace and regenerate new stem cells along the way without resorting to NASA designed storm trooper outfits when we board the A380 from Singapore to London or New York.