Stimulating Bone Growth In Astronauts 66
Anonymous Coward writes: "This story will be very interesting for women and space geeks. A State University of New York at Stonybrook researcher has invented a machine that stimulates bone growth in subjects by just having them stand on a vibrating platform. A sheep using the gizmo 20 minutes a day had 20% denser bones after only a year. The idea was to help post-menopausal women, but now it might be used to strengthen astronauts' bones before and during flights. As you know, bones in zero gravity tend to get weaker and more brittle. The weird part is how the device works. Muscle builds by responding to damage, but that's apparently not how bone gets stimulated into growing. It seems that muscle contractions occur within frequencies of 20-50Hz and bones "hear" that oscillation as a message to build up. According to the article, the platform mimics that signal by vibrating undetectably within those frequencies. Cool, huh? Here's the story."
Re:This is just going to increase the world's pop. (Score:1)
You'd swear those seats were designed to hold munchkins. Or those impossibly thin flight attendants. They look like they could use some bone strengthening to keep them from snapping in two from a strong breeze.
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rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Not to mention all the benefits that might result for those here on earth as well. I believe there are several diseases that result in loss of bone mass, in addition to the effects of aging and menopause.
Re:We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:1)
Re:Practical applications (Score:1)
Ok, I'll ask the obvious. Why would you run for years in boots? Drill sargent? Or just unaware that better footware exists?
-josh
During Flights? (Score:1)
We like the cars...the cars that go boom! (Score:1)
RIGHT ON!!! I can't wait to use that one next time I'm pulled over for a noise ordinance violation by the cops!
"But officer, my doctor said I've got brittle bones!"
Re:We like the cars...the cars that go boom! (Score:1)
Whoops...make that high or loud volumes.
Re:We like the cars...the cars that go boom! (Score:1)
Given the structural integrity of my apartment, my neighbors and I could probably keep the entire building from suffering osteoporosis in old age. Just one problem: It probably doesn't help the foundation rebuild itself.
Boom Cars (Score:1)
NO, it induces bone growth, not bone marrow (Score:1)
Yes it does (Score:1)
Re:We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:1)
Back to the topic, I think that genetically engineering a crew is a great idea, as far as the technical aspects go. In order to survive in space, you'd need some kind of hard skin, maybe an exoskeleton. You'd also need a good supply of oxygen, which you may be able to get from chlorophyll, as long as you's relatively close to the sun.
But what could you do about radiation? Are there any organisms that are really tough in that respect? (Insert joke about cockroaches surviving nuclear holocaust)
People's attitudes will have to change a lot before this happens because these new creatures will be intelligent and human-ish, but they won't really look like us. Nowadays people have problems when someone's skin is a different color. What's going to happen when they try to converse with a big green insect-like humanoid?
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
bone growth in strange places. (Score:1)
Vibrator good for something (Score:1)
It HAD to be said.... (Score:1)
Re:We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:1)
I think the only way something like this could work would be if you could change people after they have already been born and already decided they want to become space travelers. Perhaps using genetic therapy or something like that. Otherwise you are just betting on the fact that the new human will be ok with the role you have chosen for it, which seems like a bad bet to me.
old news (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Grab.
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Incidentally, stuff isn't left lying loose, it's all fairly well restrained (mostly with Velcro). If you left anything lying loose, there's too much chance of it getting somewhere it shouldn't - say, a floating spanner banging into a crucial button at the wrong time!
Why d'you need gravity anyway? There's those vibrating pad things that claim to stimulate your muscles, which the gullible use thinking that they're a substitute for exercise. Kit up with those, and you're in business.
Grab.
Bone growth? (Score:1)
Say no more, say no more, eh? 'know what I mean?
20 - 50 Hz (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (see also Natl. Geographic) (Score:1)
And, it doesn't depend on gravity. The vibrations is what cause increased bone density (not growth).
OK genius, how do I feel the vibrations in zero G? I'll just drift away from the vibrating plate since the vibrations are the result of the plate exerting a force on me, directed away from the plate. With nothing to hold me back, I'll not feel the vibrations. That's why it depends on gravity. As other posters stated, rubber bands of some kind would solve this problem easily. An even easier solution would be to make a vibrating device that fits inside an astronaut's shoe. VibraSoles?
Sheep?Women & space geeks?Stimulating bone growth? (Score:1)
Somewhere in here is the perfect /. troll... get to work you slackers!!!!1
Cancer Patients (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (see also Natl. Geographic) (Score:1)
And, it doesn't depend on gravity. The vibrations is what cause increased bone density (not growth).
It may also be a treatment against osteoporosis.
Re:One problem down, 10 more just popped up. (Score:1)
Hmmm... (Score:1)
"sSsHhUuTtt UuPpp MmmaAaNnnN, Iii'Mmm WwwWoorRkKiIInnNgGG OooUuuTtTt."
Re:One problem down, 10 more just popped up. (Score:1)
Bone density picks up a little....
everything else falls even faster.
Thanks, fellas.
For your home therapy try: (Score:1)
The vibrating platform is a cool idea, I must admit, but I think that bone growth is more attibuted to proteins that act as tensile meters. If there is a spot on the bone connected to a ligament that is stressed, the protein says, "build here."
Imagine what the vibrating platform can do for the spider goat!
Re:Bones grow according to piezoelectricity (Score:1)
Look up the statistics of eating disorders and halting of the menstrual cycle in female athletes, particulary in russia, and china. That, of course is not to say that other countries don't do it, it's just that they are the examples that come to mind.
Re:Bones grow according to piezoelectricity (Score:1)
I know myself when I code, that hours will pass with no problem, and I force myself to get and stretch to keep the discs happy. I do this because I know the consequences and have to sit through hours of lectures on the consequences. But what about your average programmer? Are they really aware of how more physical activity they should be getting( this is of course the web designers who are always off snowboarding
In fact geek related disorders could almost be a specialist category, just to correct them now so they aren't patients later.
Hmmm we'll see I guess.
Vibrating Turkeys.... IN SPACE!!!!!!!!! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
--JaffoGLIDE
Re:We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:1)
I know, the obvious solution would be to code the ability to adapt to any changes in gravity, but the reality is that we'll probably have to make some sort of trade-off somewhere.
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs."
Hmm, and three subjects down we have (Score:1)
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Rotating a section, which is expensive, since interconnecting the rotating section safely with the rest of the station would be a nightmare.
Their other alternative is to rotate the entire station, and stop it during zero-g experiments. Which is impractical both because of the duration of experiments, and because of the mess you'd get each time you started rotation after people had spent a week with g forces, and started leaving things lieing loose, and you suddenly have the station filled with assorted crap floating around.
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
Assuming acceleration, you have gravity.
Assuming free fall, just spin your ship/station, to gerenrate gravity, the way to do this has been understood for decades if not centuries.
Re:During Flights? (Score:1)
The gravity in the center of the station is always zero.
And increase all the way to the edges.
If you want more gravity, you let down a rope until you get to the gravity you need.
You could *choose* your gravity, by choosing how far from the center you are.
You don't need to re - rorate it.
Re:the downside! (Score:1)
"White Finger" problems? (Score:2)
What next - Astronaut White Toe Syndrome?
NO, they are pizeo-electric responsive. (Score:2)
Current bone stimulators for people who have trouble healing fractures rely on this principle (pulsed electric fileds or ultrsonic noise).
The frequency selected by the vibrating platform guy was no accident - it's the same one that the pulsed electric field devices work best.
Sorry to shoot down your ideas, but.. (Score:2)
This device and other bone stimulators mostly work by increasing cancellous bone mass.
Structurally, bone has basically 2 components. It has a hard, dense outer shell (cortical) and a spongier inside stuffing (cancellous). The bone density devices mostly work on the inside stuffing part (cancellous bone) and not much on the outer shell (cortical)
Shin splints and stress fractures are a cortical problem (outer shell) and don't respond so well to these devices. Rest/activity modification is still the best way to heal these.
Sorry..
Re:We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:2)
Re:During Flights? (Score:2)
If you sit on the vibrating surface, the vibrations on the thigh bones will hit at 90 degrees of the impact of walking. Maybe that will stimulate your thigh bones to grow to resist the force of sitting, but not of walking. Is that what you want?
Re:This is just going to increase the world's pop. (Score:2)
Re:Practical applications (Score:2)
I wasn't a drill sergeant but there was almost always one close at hand :) The lower limb injuries where I served were really bad during the late 80s. After a few official inquiries, we got better footwear but in some cases the damage had been done.
extremely easily (Score:2)
In addition to vibrating muscles... (Score:2)
Just a thought.
Re:During Flights? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure it's decades.
Too bad they didn't build the centrifugal force thing into the space station; if I remember correctly, someone asked this question to an official involved in the project. He said it would be too expensive (makes sense), plus they wanted zero gravity for certain experiments (which makes little sense whatsoever, with a spinning station you could change the gravity at will)
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One problem down, 10 more just popped up. (Score:2)
A Nice Hack (Score:2)
Really, this is like observing and mimicking the communication in a distributed system (read: computer network). Only that biology uses (and a computer scientist would say: abuses) so many forms of communication that discoveries like this are still possible even today. It even has some kind of hacker spirit - why use a hormone to tell the bone to grow, when the vibration that's there anyway will do?
Bones grow according to piezoelectricity (Score:2)
Bone(hydroxyapatite), when compressed, generates a charge. This charge in turn stimulates more bone to grow.
What happens in space is that there is not as much force and so the osteoclasts(or osteoblasts, i can't remember), resorb more bone than is grown.
This is why when a bone is broken it is better to use fracture bracing(orthotics, or casts), and keep the person using the bone, so that the bone is stimulated into healing.
An example of this is the strength difference between internal/external fixation and using fracture bracing.
A brief look at any medical journal, or more specifically, prosthetics/orthotics journals.
I dont know (Score:2)
It just seems a bit shaky to me!
Lord Arathres
We'd be better off engineering crew (Score:2)
This is a pretty interesting application of technology to solve one of the problems of long-term space travel, but the trouble is that if you're staying for long terms in orbit then there are a whole host of problems which need to be tackled in order to stay fit and able to function again when you come back down to Earth and its one gee of gravity.
The trouble with all of this kind of thing is that whilst it may work it's expensive, time-consuming and often just not effective. If we're going to look towards the future of the race out in the stars, we need to take a more fundamental look at the problem.
The fact is humans aren't designed for space, and we need to change that.
But thankfully we are now coming to and era when we can change our design, and scientists and biotech companies are aggressively moving foward with our understanding of our genetic code. Soon we will be able to manipulate ourselves in order to maximise our potential rather than wasting it on flawed designs. And what better way of using this technology than to prepare ourselves for our glorious leap to space?
We should begin thinking about mass programs of genetic alterations to able us to function better in outer space and under low gravity situations. Things like a more efficient oxygenation system or perhaps even extended our visual range could make a vast difference to our hopes of survival, and by doing it to the germ plasm itself we avoid clunky cybernetic solutions that are unnatural and inefficient.
Whilst I'm sure this idea will be greeted with outrage from people with an emotional attachment to their biological makeup, it makes perfect sense in the long run. And you can bet that if we don't go ahead and do it a culture with less hangups about their physical bodies will do it in order to get ahead. I'd imagine the Chinese would love the idea...
Practical applications (Score:3)
The only downside is the endless paper-TV ads. "How much would expect to pay for this? $500? $1000? Nope - for an incredible $249 the new BoneGro can be yours!"
Re:Bones grow according to piezoelectricity (Score:3)
One of the main problems with osteoporosis is that, for women, density is lost in the wrong way. Whereas men usually maintain an appropriate matrix which helps protect against common fractures, women lose many of the stabilizing trabecular bone "cross-beams." I had always wondered if this were in part due to differences in weight-bearing exercises. Maybe so, and maybe the piezoelectric effect induced by this vibration will solve part of the problem. The most important thing in this case is not the density of bone, however, but whether the end result (Colles fractures, spinal compression, hip fractures) are reduced. Hopefully there will be some good trials in the future to address this. Hip fractures, because they are usually in the elderly, are a major public health problem. 25% of women with osteoporotic hip fractures die within 6 months. It's just sad to see people who were formerly able to take good care of themselves waste away after a bad fall.
So, I suppose, until this and other devices/drugs make osteoporosis a thing of the past, a public service announcement is in order. If you are a white/East Asian female 10-25, GET LOTS OF CALCIUM! It really is the time when your bones are packing away the calcium for the rest of your life. Osteoporosis is quite debilitating, even to geeks. Maybe especially to geeks, since they are maybe more likely to get less exercise! Take supplements, drink milk, do whatever. Just know that you will probably thank yourself 30-40 years down the road...
Invicta{HOG}
A bit rude... :) (Score:3)
rr
BoNe Growth?! (Score:3)
Re:20Hz-50Hz? (Score:4)
Hmmm... so that means if I strap a subwoofer to my ass my bones will get stronger?
And it explains why rap fans are so hard headed....
Temkin
Re:This is just going to increase the world's pop. (Score:5)
You'd swear those seats were designed to hold munchkins
Its not just the seats, its everything. You get a tiny meal on a tiny plate which you have to eat with tiny knives and forks. You get drinks in tiny little cups, and Coke from tiny cans.
I can't help but get the feeling that if one ever gets to take a tour of Boeing's engineering department, you'll find hundreds of really small engineers toiling away to build better planes for people, all seemingly unaware that real people are much bigger.
20Hz-50Hz? (Score:5)