Astronaut health research may reveal secrets of successful aging

Chris Hadfield participates in research happening within the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.

If you want to speed up the aging process, become an astronaut.

For weeks on end, those in space experience conditions that parallel the impacts of aging: limited mobility and stresses to their heart, muscles and nervous system.

Both in space and on terra firma, regimens have been found to offset some of those impacts for astronauts. Could the lessons from space help neutralize the effects of aging for the Earth-bound?

That will be among the questions asked June 16 to 19 when 200 international scientists gather at the University of Waterloo for the Life in Space for Life on Earth conference.

Sponsored by the European Space Agency, the International Society for Gravitational Physiology and the University’s Department of Kinesiology, this conference will include the world’s first Aging in Space symposium.

Three astronauts will be among the presenters at the four-day conference: Bob Thirsk (Canada), Chiaki Mukai (Japan) and Reinhold Ewald (Germany).

At that June 17 breakout symposium, supported by the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging, more than a dozen experts will speak on: do we age faster in space; back pain in space and on Earth; and lessons from space for promoting an active lifestyle in the elderly.

Conference organizer and University of Waterloo kinesiology professor Richard Hughson says, “We are fortunate to have the world’s leading space scientists as well as three astronauts coming together to discuss how spaceflight affects the human body and how results from space can actually be used to benefit life here on Earth.”

The conference is not only about aging. Other presentations will focus on preparing for long space flights: plant growth in zero gravity; and balance control in Martian or lunar gravity.

Research by Vanderbilt University associate professor Jens Titze will offer insights into how the body processes, stores and eliminates salt — a major factor in blood pressure control — and how a space-related study may have profound effects for terrestrial medicine.