The study found widespread use of sleeping medications such as zolpidem and zaleplon during space flight.
| Science Recorder Pro | |
| Free trial. No ads. Exclusive interviews. Access to all articles. Just $4.99/year. Subscribe |
According to a report from researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Colorado, an extensive study of sleep monitoring and sleeping pill use in astronauts found that astronauts suffer substantial sleep deficiency in the weeks leading up to and during space flight. Additionally, the research highlights pervasive use of sleeping medication use among astronauts.
Published in The Lancet Neurology on August 8, the study recorded over 4,000 nights of sleep on Earth, and over 4,200 nights in space using data from 64 astronauts on 80 Shuttle missions, and 21 astronauts aboard International Space Station (ISS) missions. The 10-year study is the largest to study sleep during space flight ever conducted. The study found that astronauts need more effective countermeasures to promote sleep during space flight to optimize human performance.
Although NASA schedules 8.5 hours of sleep per night for crewmembers in space flight, the average duration of sleep during space flight was 5.96 hours on shuttle missions, and 6.09 on ISS missions. Twelve percent of sleep episodes on shuttle missions and 24 percent on ISS missions lasted seven hours or more, as compared to 42 percent and 50 percent, respectively, in a post-flight data collection interval when most astronauts slept at home.
Furthermore, the results suggest that astronauts’ build-up of sleep deficiency began long before launch, as they averaged under 6.5 hours sleep per night during the training interval approximately three months prior to space flight.
The study found widespread use of sleeping medications such as zolpidem and zaleplon during space flight. Three-quarters of ISS crew members reported using sleep medication at some point while onboard, and 78 percent of shuttle-mission crew members used medication on 52 percent of nights in space.
In a 2001 NASA new release, officials reported that on some space shuttle missions, up to 50 percent of the crew take sleeping pills, and, overall, nearly half of all medication used in orbit is intended to help astronauts sleep. Even so, space travelers averages about 2 hours sleep less each night in space than they do on the ground.
Print article
0 comments:
Post a Comment