In April 2002, South African computer entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth paid about $20 million for a round-trip flight to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Shuttleworth underwent a year of training and preparation before the space flight. (NASA)

A group of former NASA executives plans to offer excursions to the moon to anyone who can afford the   $1.4-million-dollar-per-couple ticket price.

Golden Spike Co. is the latest private company to join the burgeoning space tourism industry.

Once operations launch, the public demand for seats on commercial spacecraft is expected to grow from 373 seats in the first year, to 533 seats in the 10th year, for a ten-year total of 4,518 seats, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Aside from money, health might be a factor in deciding whether or not to take a space vacation. Professional astronauts go through rigorous testing and conditioning before jetting into space.

A study in the British Medical Journal suggests the medical community should establish a set of health screening standards for potential space tourists to determine whether they can withstand the rigors of space travel.

At the moment, there is no standard outlining how medical professionals should advise patients about the health implications of space travel.

NASA’s selection process for picking the first American astronauts included extensive physical and psychological testing. Here, Mercury astronaut Walter Schirra’s lung capacity is tested. (NASA)

“We all have questions from patients related to air travel,” said the study’s lead author Dr. S. Marlene Grenon from the University of California, San Francisco. “In the short future, we may be getting questions from our patients about space travel.”

Medical doctors and other scientists have researched the impact of space travel on the human body ever since the space race between the USA and the former USSR began in 1957.  A half-century later, scientists have found space travel does profoundly affect humans, both physically and mentally.

“In a zero-gravity outer-space environment, humans go through very unique physiological changes,” said Grenon. “They experience bone loss, muscle atrophy, increased risk of certain heart problems, a decrease in immune function, kidney stones and motion sickness. These significant changes in the body and how it functions need to be considered.”

Space health guidelines could also help doctors treat those who might suffer the ill effects of space travel while in flight.

So far, commercial space tourism has served only a few passengers and they’ve all gone through the rigorous screening and training given to professional astronauts.

“The changes that occur in zero gravity happen for several reasons,” Grenon said. “This includes volume redistribution towards the chest and head, decrease use of the lower extremities, and the lack of gravitational stimuli on the cells.”

Virgin Galactic has scheduled its first space tourism flight, which will ferry citizen astronauts who pay  $200,000 per ticket. (Virgin Galactic)

The study’s senior author Millie Hughes-Fulford, also from UCSF, knows a bit about the impact of space flight on the human body. She was the first woman to travel into space as a working scientist on board the shuttle Columbia in 1991.

“It feels like you’re on top of a roller coaster while you’re in outer space. That feeling, in the pit of your stomach, is what you’ll experience the entire time,” said Hughes-Fulford. “You must check with your doctor to see if your heart and other vital organs are up for this type of adventure.”

Grenon said a new field of medicine could open up as a result of the expected rapid growth of the space tourism industry.

“In the future, I think we can expect space medicine doctors will be needed specifically for the commercial space sector as demand increases,” she said. “And these experts would likely link with specialists on Earth in different fields such as cardiology, vascular surgery or neurology when it comes to specific questions on a condition in space or recommendations on how to best manage a medical problem prior to a flight.”

Rush hour in Atlanta, Georgia (Photo: Matt Lemmon via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Traffic noise can be hazardous to your health, according to the results of a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Researchers studied noise pollution in Fulton County, Georgia. Their findings suggest  many of the community’s residents are exposed to high levels of noise from local road traffic which affects their psychological well being and can disturb their sleep, both of which can have serious health consequences.

Too much noise! (Photo: Rogiro via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) also weighed in on the health hazards of environmental noise, saying  it can cause adverse psychosocial and physiological effects on public health.  WHO research in Western Europe showed that traffic-related noise was responsible for taking more than one million healthy years of life per year because of ill health, disability or early death.

Fulton County, where the study took place, is an urban area which includes the city of Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs. Like most large American cities, Fulton County is surrounded and crisscrossed with a network of major roadways and interstate highways carrying thousands of motorists each day.

The study focused on Interstate Highway 285, a large highway loop that encircles Atlanta, running around the heart of the county.

Researchers collected  data  from various points to get an estimate of road traffic noise exposure levels surrounding I-285.  This included specific physical and characteristics of the area, the level of vehicle traffic and speed, and the various types of vehicles that traveled the interstate.

Excessive traffic noise can play a role in sleep disturbance (Photo: Kamikaze Gecko via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Guided by the US Federal Highway Administration’s Traffic Noise Model, researchers created traffic noise maps of their study area for both day and night. They then examined and measured various parameters to determine the possibilities that certain percentages of the populace, who are exposed to varying levels of road traffic noise, would be become highly annoyed or have high levels of sleep disturbance, at any given time.

The small city of College Park, Georgia, about ten miles southwest of Atlanta and surrounded with highways,  came in first with the highest percentage of its population being at risk of being most affected by noise pollution.  About 11.3 percent of College Park’s daytime population and 3.7 percent of its nighttime population were estimated to be at risk for experiencing either annoyance or sleep disturbance.

Ironically, US Census Bureau data indicates that the greater Atlanta area had the lowest number of households – from among 38  metropolitan areas – reporting the presence of road traffic noise.

“It may be assumed that even more people would be affected in other densely populated areas of the US,” says the study’s co-investigator James  Holt,  of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control in Atlanta.

Many people today have sedentary jobs, sitting at their desks all day (Photo: Star511 at Flickr/Creative Commons)

Are the technologies and comforts of modern society making us inactive and lazy?

In a recent study published by the British medical journal, the “Lancet,” in 2008 physical inactivity led to the death of nearly 5.3 million people across the world – that’s one in every 10 deaths.

It’s been reported that the problem of physical inactivity is growing in pandemic proportions.

Dr. Michael Joyner, a physiologist at the Mayo Clinic, writing in “The Journal of Physiology,” expands on concerns about the lack of physical activity and says that inactivity or a lack of exercise should be treated as if it were a medical condition.

Joyner says that the idea of inactivity’s impact on our health has been emerging in the medical community for at least the last 10 years.

“We’re looking at the exercise, inactivity/activity all wrong,” he says. “We’ve defined the normal state as the physically inactive state when in fact the normal state is the active state and so many of our lifestyle-related diseases and chronic diseases have their root cause in physical inactivity.”

Joyner also says that innovative treatments for many of these health problems center on increasing people’s physical activity.

He suggests that inactivity be “medicalized,” similar to what has been done to treat other health issues such as addiction and smoking.  That way, Joyner says, new treatments can be developed including those that focus on behavioral modifications and physical activity.

Taking it further, Joyner suggests that nations take public health measures to help promote physical activity.

Instead of spending hours sitting on your couch watching TV, why not get up and go for a walk? (Photo: Jessica Spengler via Flickr/Creative Commons)

So why has a lack of physical activity become such a problem? Joyner says there are what he describes as “death spirals” occurring simultaneously that encourages us to be less physically active and eat too much.

For example, he points out, that instead of getting their children to go outside and play, many parents today simply allow them to sit around the house to watch TV or play video games.  And, rather than encourage them to walk or ride their bicycles to school, some parents just drive their kids to and from their school’s doorstep.

Adults too have been sucked into the inactive lifestyle, according to Joyner.  He says that more people today are working in urban environments, where it might be difficult to be physically active all day long.

“In places like the United States and other developed countries, we’re sort of prisoners to our cars and so forth,” Joyner said.

Joyner says that less activity along with all of the rich, calorie-laden food that’s quickly available and ready to eat can combine into a real problem.

That problem, he says, includes non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke, and depression, which have been affecting the developed world and are increasingly affecting countries that are in economic transition.

According to Joyner, the diseases are all linked to lower levels of physical activity.

On the other hand, he says, people who maintain an active lifestyle are relatively protected from the conditions.  Joyner also points out that those who already have the diseases can get better when they become more physically active.

Joyner warns that if nothing is done to address inactivity, people are going to continue to get sick, their kidneys and blood vessels will fail, and they will need plenty of costly medical treatments.

Getting physically active can be as easy as taking a brisk walk every day. (Photo: Trailnet via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Joyner says that if physical inactivity were treated as a medical condition, doctors and other providers can be better educated about the benefits of physical activity and become much more aware of the value of prescribing exercise instead of drugs.

That, he says, could also encourage the development of more formal rehabilitation programs that include innovative cognitive and behavioral therapy.

If after reading this you recognize that you aren’t as physically inactive as you should be, Joyner says a number of studies have shown that 150 minutes a week of “moderately vigorous physical activity” offers a level of protection from potentially deadly diseases and conditions.

“The easiest way to do that,” Joyner says, “is to go out on five 30-minute walks a week, and push it a little bit.” But he warns not to push too hard, “just a good brisk walk.”  If you find it difficult to do 30 minutes at a time, Dr. Joyner suggests that you can break up the walking sessions into three 10-minute segments and only do what you can handle.

For those people who have been inactive for a long period of time, gained some weight or have developed medical problems, getting physically active can be an even more difficult challenge.

If you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, are a smoker or are over 45 years of age, Joyner says that you might want to see your physician before starting a physical activity or exercise program.

But don’t be discouraged, Joyner adds that in general, data shows that a majority of people can go out and walk to their level of discomfort without a lot of risk, meaning that most can begin a walking program relatively easy.

Dr. Michael Joyner is with us for this week’s radio edition of Science World and he talks about the dangers of being physically inactive and most importantly what we can do to help ourselves get and stay active and healthy.

Listen to the interview below.

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Dr. Joyner’s blog – here

Patient getting emergency room treatment for cardiac emergency (Photo: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons)

Heart failure is one of the most common causes of hospitalization and is among the most expensive chronic diseases to treat.  When a patient comes in to the emergency room complaining about having difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, fatigue, or chest tightness, the health care professionals must decide then and there if the patient is at a high or low short-term risk of dying within the next seven days.

Admission to the hospital is often required for patients who were determined to have a high or intermediate-risk.  But, for those who were considered to be low-risk patients, the doctors may just send them home after receiving some medical care at the emergency room.

If a bedside clinical assessment of a heart failure patient isn’t clearly apparent, this could lead to an uncertain prognosis which may cause the doctor to either overestimate or underestimate the risk of death.  This results in some very low-risk patients being hospitalized when they could have been sent home or, conversely, with very high-risk patients who were thought to be safe for discharge being sent home where they soon die.

(Photo: KOMU Photos/Eric Staszczak via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Determining whether a heart failure patient is high or low risk is often very challenging, even for the best physicians.  But now, a new web based computer algorithm developed in Canada may help doctors make better decisions on whether the patient stays or is sent back home.

“Doctors estimate the risk of heart failure patients in the emergency department based on best clinical judgment which may include different factors depending on their prior experience,” says Dr. Douglas Lee, a cardiologist at Toronto’s Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Lee led a team of doctors and scientists to develop the “Emergency Heart Failure Mortality Risk Grade” or EHMRG.  It’s a risk model or algorithm that uses 10 simple predictors such as blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of troponin (an enzyme that’s normally only found in the heart) all of which can indicate potential heart trouble.

Dr. Douglas Lee led team to develop 'Emergency Heart Failure Mortality Risk Grade' or EHMRG. (Photo: Peter Munk Cardiac Centre)

After entering all of the required medical information into the program, available on the web, the program performs calculations and produces an individual probability report on whether that patient could die within the week.

Along with the web-based application Dr. Lee and his team is also developing a version of this program for the smartphone.  Dr. Lee’s goal with this system is to collect data from individual physicians and hospitals that would be used to make comparative studies that would improve the quality of care and also help doctors and hospitals become more cost efficient.

Dr. Lee invites any physician who may be reading this to try their new system. It’s available on the web. The address is ccort.ca.

On this week’s radio edition of “Science World” Dr. Lee joins us to talk about this new system and the countless number of lives it could save every year.  Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen to the interview with Dr. Lee below.

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Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• NASA getting set to launch black hole hunter
• UN report warns that Earth faces irreversible damage
• Researchers have linked skin cancer with childhood stress
• Scientists find 3.4 million year-old pre-human fossilized foot
• Skywatchers witness once in a lifetime astronomical event
• Wildlife officials take unusual steps to stop invasive species of fish

Owwwww! How could something that taste's so good... hurt so bad? (Photo: Jayel Aheram via Flickr/Creative Commons)

You’ve got a delicious ice cream cone in your hand and you can’t wait to taste it. You quickly take a big bite out of the frozen treat when – BANG – you get this incredibly intense shooting pain in your head.

Some call it an ice cream headache or brain freeze.  Although it can be painful, we’re also comforted to know that it passes quickly.

Past research has shown that those who suffer from migraine headaches tend to get brain freeze more often than those who don’t.

That led an international team of researchers, who study migraines and other types of headaches, to wonder if there’s a common link between brain freeze and migraines.

With this connection in mind,  and because they found it difficult to study migraine headaches directly, due to their unpredictability, the researchers decided to focus their study on brain freeze to gain insight into migraines and other more serious headaches.

Thirteen healthy adults were used as test subjects.  As the subjects  drank ice-cold water to give themselves brain freeze, researchers monitored the blood flow to their brain.

Researchers found one artery in particular, called the anterior cerebral artery, expanded rapidly when the test subjects experienced pain from the onset of brain freeze. This caused the brain to be flooded with blood.  As the pain ebbed, the same artery quickly constricted, reducing the flow of blood to the brain.

From these findings, team leader Dr. Jorge Serrador, of the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs, and his fellow researchers, speculate that the rapid expansion, and then constriction, of the artery might be some sort of self-defense mechanism for the brain.

“The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time,” Serrador says. “It’s fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm.  But because the skull is a closed structure, the sudden influx of blood could raise pressure and induce pain. The following vasoconstriction may be a way to bring pressure down in the brain before it reaches dangerous levels.”

Serrador thinks the changes in brain blood flow observed in the study,  could also be at work in serious headaches such as migraines and post-traumatic headaches.

If the study findings are confirmed by further study, new treatments that control the blood flow to the brain could be developed to help those who suffer from serious headaches such as migraines.