According to a new study, space travel increases the risk of breakdown… in bed.
- During space missions, astronauts are exposed to high levels of galactic cosmic radiation and weightlessness.
- An experiment conducted on rats shows spaceflight can negatively affect vascular tissues and cause erectile dysfunction.
- For researchers, it is necessary to monitor the sexual health of astronauts upon their return to Earth.
Stays in Thomas’ space Pesquet have always made you fantasize? The study, published in the scientific journal Tea FASEB Newspapermight just make your feelings of lust towards the French astronaut disappear. Based on work by the team at Florida State University and the University School of Medicine Wake Forest, North Carolina, spaceflight increases the risk of erectile dysfunction in men.
Astronauts have increased risk of brain disordererection
“There has been growing interest within the space industry in long-duration manned expeditions to the Moon and beyond. March”note the scientists in their article. Absence of gravity, cosmic radiation… these Travel is not without consequences on the health of astronauts. American researchers therefore asked themselves a question – certainly a little trivial on the scale of great human discoveries, but all the same essential for man -: what are the long-term effects of spaceflight on their sex lives?
To answer this question, the team gathered 86 male rats. For four weeks, half of them were positioned with their hind limbs up to simulate the weightlessness observed in space. The other rodents were allowed to roam around in their cages as usual. Additionally, within the two groups, the animals were exposed to different levels of high, light, or no cosmic radiation exposure.
Result : These aspects of spaceflight negatively affect the vascular tissues present in the penis and can cause erectile dysfunction. And this, even after a long-term recovery period.
Space flights: sexual health should be monitored
This work showed that vascular alterations are induced by relatively low doses of galactic cosmic radiation and, to a lesser extent, by simulated weightlessness, mainly due to an increase in oxidative stress.
“With manned missions to space planned for the coming years, this work indicates that sexual health should be closely monitored among astronauts upon their return to Earthexplains author Justin D. Favor from Florida State University in a communicated. While the negative impacts of galactic cosmic radiation have been long-lasting, functional improvements induced by acute targeting of nitric oxide and redox pathways in tissues suggest that erectile dysfunction may be treatable.”
Researchers suggest that treatments with different antioxidants could counter some of these effects, and avoid “breakdowns” to cosmonauts.
