Deliverables for Exploration and Earth Applications

The Cardiovascular Alterations Team is focusing on countermeasures to ensure that alterations in cardiovascular function do not interfere with crew performance or mission success.

• Individualized exercise prescriptions for cardiovascular health;
• A combination of strength training and nutritional supplementation as a countermeasure to bone loss, cardiovascular deconditioning and muscle atrophy;
• Countermeasures to lessen the adverse effects of radiation-related damage to the lining of the blood vessels and the heart;
• Computer models to predict safe working conditions for astronauts during extravehicular activity;
• Determination of whether long-duration spaceflight leads to clinical significant changes in cardiac and vascular structure and function;
• Determination of whether long-duration spaceflight causes a risk for developing in-flight cardiac arrhythmias and whether long missions increase the risk for significant orthostatic intolerance due to a drop in blood pressure during landing or exposure to reduced gravity; and
• An optimal strategy of cardiovascular screening to reduce the risk of flying astronauts with pre-existing but subclinical heart diseases that could arise during an exploration-class mission.

Earth Applications
The Team's research has applications for Earth use in the following ways:

• Strength training and rowing is now incorporated into treatment for patients after prolonged periods of bed rest or chronic reduction in physical activity, for patients with disease processes that alter cardiac stiffness such as obesity, hypertension, heart failure or ischemic heart disease, and for persons with normal aging and osteoporosis;
• Countermeasures for radiation-induced damage to the heart and blood vessels could be used prevent or reduce biological damage from terrestrial radiation sources, such as nuclear weapons or radiation bioterrorism, or to reduce side effects from radiation treatments; and
• Determination of risk of sudden death from heart-rhythm disturbances through use of the NASA and NSBRI-funded Microvolt T-Wave Alternans Test, cleared by the FDA and reimbursed by Medicare.