Besides the obvious perils, hazards for long-distance space travelers may also lurk within their own bodies.
A new study reports that space travel appears to lend vigor to viruses that lie dormant in many people. Under normal circumstances, the body can fight off these viruses -- including the ones that cause herpes and chickenpox -- with little effort. But with space travel, it appears, things may change.
In the current issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers at NASA and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston described examinations of 28 shuttle astronauts from 1997 to 1999.
The lead author, Dr. Raymond Stowe, and his colleagues focused on the Epstein-Barr virus, which has been linked to infectious mononucleosis, chronic fatigue and possibly lymphoma.
The researchers reported that the blood of a dozen astronauts showed weakened immune responses to Epstein-Barr and greater levels of the virus's reproduction. While the finding may not pose a threat to astronauts on shorter missions, it may raise issues for longer flights, the researchers said. The culprit, they said, may be stress, based on urine samples showing elevated levels of hormones linked to it.Continue reading the main story