ILO Home
Go to the home page
Site map | Contact us Français | Español

CISDOC database

Document ID (ISN)73649
CIS number 99-1697
ISSN - Serial title 0095-6562 - Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine
Year 1999
Convention or series no.
Author(s) Stein T.P., Schluter M.D.
Title Plasma amino acids during human spaceflight
Bibliographic information Mar. 1999, Vol.70, No.3, p.250-255. Illus. 22 ref.
Abstract Plasma amino acid distribution patterns were measured before, during and after flight on the Space Shuttle. The plasma samples were collected from the four payload crewmembers of a 1993 shuttle mission. Samples were taken 45, 15 and 8 days before flight; inflight on days 2, 8 and 12 after launch; post flight on the day of landing; and again 6, 14 and 45 days after landing. Most of the changes found pertained to the essential amino acids, particularly the branched chain amino acids (BCAA). The principle findings were: a) plasma aminograms for inflight days 8 and 12 were very similar and both aminograms were very different from that of flight day 2. Flight day 2 was not different from the preflight ground control; b) with increasing time in space, there was an increase in the concentration of leucine and isoleucine in the plasma. This increase occurred even though dietary BCAA intake was not increased inflight; and c) concentrations of total essential amino acids and BCAA in particular were decreased on the day of landing. Topics: amino acids; blood monitoring; blood plasma; body weight; determination in blood; nutrition; plasma changes; space travel.
Descriptors (primary) amino acids; space travel; blood monitoring
Descriptors (secondary) blood plasma; plasma changes; body weight; determination in blood; nutrition
Document type D - Periodical articles
Country / State or ProvinceUSA
Subject(s) Transport and communications
Broad subject area(s) Physiology, ergonomics
Browse category(ies) Nutrition
Space travel
Biological monitoring