Posted on 03/25/2025 2:49:43 PM PDT by logi_cal869
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are plagued by persistent rashes, unusual allergies and a variety of infections, including fungi, cold sores and shingles.
Researchers now think they know why: The orbiting lab doesn’t have enough germs.
Bacteria typically found in or on the body arrive in space with their human hosts, but the array of free-living microbes found on Earth—in soil and water—is lacking.
This kind of microbial imbalance has been linked to chronic inflammatory diseases, and scientists hypothesize that cultivating a diverse set of microbes on the ISS—and the station’s eventual replacement—could improve astronaut health.
“There’s a big difference between exposure to healthy soil from gardening versus stewing in our own filth, which is kind of what happens if we’re in a strictly enclosed environment with no ongoing input of those healthy sources of microbes from the outside,” said Rob Knight, director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California, San Diego.
More than 280 astronauts have visited the ISS in its 25-year history, and to better understand the conditions, Knight, other researchers from UCSD and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration worked together to map the microbes living on the space station. The station, they found, is more sterile than living quarters on Earth, and the bacteria they identified there were associated with immune-related symptoms.
The findings were published last month in the journal Cell.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Peter Principle on display for all. They should have figured this out decades ago.
Kids who don’t grow up around animals tend to have more problems with asthma.
And they don’t go outside anymore.
Boys might not even get muddy anymore unless they play an outside sport.
We need the whole biosphere immersion to stay healthy.
Another reason so many kids seem to be sick nowadays also. They don’t go outside and play in the dirt like kids from the past. Most live in such sterile areas they get sick more often.
They should allow smoking there too. Would likely prevent them from developing asthma.
In soft Chicago rain I rolled in mud
A child not knowing that the things I value now
Were taking root as surely as the rose beside my door.
Send up a Hunter Biden painting.
it did me.
i had to smoke to control asthma
I ended up quitting when I took Quercetin
We drank LA City gutter water
” plagued by persistent rashes, unusual allergies and a variety of infections, including fungi, cold sores and shingles. “
Fungi? a form of athletes foot
Cold sores...a form of herpes
shingles..they all had chicken pox as a kid.
LOL. Love that movie (the first one; never read the book. The radio show I saw live when they were in town a few years back. AMAZING!).
Ironically, now take this newfound knowledge and apply it to a human Martian colony in a sterile habitat...
Translated:
The astronauts’ immune systems were functioning poorly.
If they had a measure to graph, I’m sure it’s progressive corresponding to time both at that altitude and in that sterile environment.
We are genetically predisposed to survive in this hostile biosphere, not a sterile spacecraft. As stated, this should have been common knowledge years ago.
cheap vodka , keeps the headaches away
simple homeopathy
Our intestinal tract is filled with bacteria.
I can't imagine the smell of body odor after being stored in a box without shower facilities for however long they are boxed up........
It takes a special person not to go psycho and off their fellow stinkers in that environment.
I worked on research farms for years.
The fish farms were my favorite. The fish don’t make much noise and they don’t step on you like a cow or try to cut you open with its talons like a rooster.
The problem on the space station is best addressed through regular probiotic supplements.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.