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Herpes Virus Reactivation in Astronauts During Spaceflight
- fixermark 8y agoInteresting to me personally because I'd never heard before that HSV-1 reactivation was stress-linked.
- mfoy_ 8y agoIt's well known that stress weakens the immune system[1]. So it's not a surprise that stress might encourage dormant infections (such as HSV-1) to enjoy a resurgence. [1] https://www.apa.org/research/action/immune https://www.apa.org/research/action/immune
- jacobolus 8y agoSpeaking anecdotally, sleep deprivation is the biggest immune system damper for me. Often it’s hard for me to judge the effects of stress per se, because sleep deprivation also leads to stress and vice versa.
- dajohnson89 8y agoI get canker sores [0] only during periods of extremely high stress or sleep deprivation. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphthous_stomatitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphthous_stomatitis
- degenerate 8y agoIf you ever had chicken pox, high stress can re-activate the dormant virus, and it reactivates as "shingles". There is a vaccine that came out a few years ago to suppress it from happening.
- brewdad 8y agoI think the vaccine is only covered by insurance (USA) for people over 50 in most cases. If you are lucky enough to have coverage, get the vaccine. Shingles as an otherwise healthy 42 year old was no picnic, I can't imagine how bad it must be for someone older or more immuno-compromised.
- tomcam 8y agoHad chicken pox in my 30s. Not good. The shingles vaccine isn’t expensive, thank heaven. It’s a quarter century later and my mom got shingles at about this age…
- rincebrain 8y agoAFAICT both the options for shingles vaccination are just variants on the chickenpox vaccine - one being more directly just a high dose of it. This doesn't undermine anything you say, I'm just bemused at the lag time between the chickenpox vaccine (1984) and Zostavax (2006).
- g45y45 8y ago"Filthy stinking astronauts" -- upright citizens brigade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-30442RII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-30442RII
- reaperducer 8y agoI was thinking "space herpes," but couldn't remember what movie it was from.
- sp332 8y agoIce Pirates.
- bcaulfield 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me2inj1nNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me2inj1nNw
- xkcd-sucks 8y agoSpace is cool, but I didn't see any gravity related controls nor any other space specific controls. Consider that the relationship between stress (HPA axis, etc.) and viral activation is pretty well known. Models of chronic rodent stress include constant loud noise, uncomfortable environmental scale (open spaces versus "comfortable" places with places to hide/nest), weird lighting and temperature, "violent" (freaking them out, not hurting them) handling, etc. These rodent models seem pretty similar to "put humans in a cramped little box, shake them around and mess with their sleep and eating schedules". There's nothing novel and space specific here except for "going to space is stressful" and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
- potiuper 8y agoFTAA - "Larger quantities and increased frequencies for these viruses were found during spaceflight as compared to before or after flight samples and their matched healthy controls." Further details such as graphs, p values, and references are also provided.
- nabla9 8y agoI would humbly suggest submarine crews as control group. Canned air, tight space, weird sleep cycles, noise and artificial light. Submarine crews are even more isolated because they can't contact families while underway.
- 101001001001 8y agoIt’s not a good comparison. Submarine crews are larger, have more history and culture to fall back on, and submarine diving is routine compared to space flight. And also you’re only ever one ascent away from home. The environmental factors might be similar but the net stress levels don’t seem to be.
- w-ll 8y agoOr even saturation divers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_diving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_diving
- 8y ago
- minikites 8y agoReminder that the stigma against herpes is a pharmaceutical marketing creation from the mid 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Society_and_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Society_and_cul... >Pedro Cuatrecasas states, "during the R&D of acyclovir, marketing [department of Burroughs Wellcome] insisted that there were 'no markets' for this compound. Most had hardly heard of genital herpes..." Thus, marketing the medical condition—separating the 'normal cold sore' from the 'stigmatized genital infection' was to become the key to marketing the drug, a process now known as 'disease mongering'. >Much of the hysteria and stigma surrounding herpes stems from a media campaign beginning in the late 1970s and peaking in the early 1980s. Multiple articles were worded in fear-mongering and anxiety-provoking terminology, such as the now-ubiquitous "attacks", "outbreaks", "victims", and "sufferers". At one point, the term "herpetic" even entered the popular lexicon. The articles were published by Reader's Digest, U.S. News, and Time magazine, among others. A made-for-TV movie was named Intimate Agony. The peak was when Time magazine had 'Herpes: The New Scarlet Letter' on the cover in August 1982, forever stigmatizing the word in the public mind.
- reaperducer 8y agoThe peak was when Time magazine had 'Herpes: The New Scarlet Letter' on the cover in August 1982 It's was actually "Today's scarlet letter: Herpes." https://goo.gl/images/hVd6um https://goo.gl/images/hVd6um Sad when people can't do a simple Google search to verify most easily verifiable claims.
- g45y45 8y agoDid you update the wikipedia article with the correct citation? Its easy to complain on HN, takes a little more effort to correct misinformation for future internet users.
- reaperducer 8y agoDid you update the wikipedia article with the correct citation? Nope. And for reasons I've outlined elsewhere on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19400846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19400846
- bdamm 8y agoAt first I thought this was going to be about breakouts of shingles on the ISS, the thought of which nearly put me off spaceflight entirely. What a relief!
- ncmncm 8y agoThe article doesn't mention, among possible stressors, that spacecraft are always operated at reduced air pressure and high oxygen fraction, and low humidity. The problem is, nobody knows which factors are actually responsible for downregulating immune system activity, because every astronaut gets all of them. A few ought to be variable. Sleep deprivation ought to be entirely avoidable, but NASA cannot quite manage not scheduling more to do in a day than there is day.
- benj111 8y ago"The problem is, nobody knows which factors are actually responsible for downregulating immune system activity, because every astronaut gets all of them." They could check? Might be a good idea to know before they send Astronauts to Mars or something? None of your examples are space dependent, and compared to SLS, slightly cheaper.
- jamesmontalvo3 8y agoISS is at 1 atmosphere, except in the airlock when preparating for a spacewalk.
- sitharus 8y agoISS, Soyuz and soon the crewed Dragon 2 all operate at sea-level air pressure with standard o2 partial pressure. Apollo was the last high oxygen environment.
- bootlooped 8y agoI am surprised to see this data, because my impression was that you essentially had to be a physically and mentally flawless human being to go into space.
- rjurney 8y agoThey don't mention simplex B, which makes me wonder if it cancels you out.
- icedchai 8y agoOver 60% of humanity has HSV-1 [1], aka "cold sores" virus. When people "get tested", they generally don't even check for it unless you request it, because it would create unjustified concern. [1] See https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-10-2015-globally-an-estimated-two-thirds-of-the-population-under-50-are-infected-with-herpes-simplex-virus-type-1 https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-10-2015-globally-an-...
- burfog 8y agoSo almost 40% of humanity does not have HSV-1. Astronaut selection is already severe. You don't get selected if you have tuberculosis, diabetes, amputations, or deafness. Once selected, you won't go on the launch if you are sick with the flu. It doesn't seem like HSV-1 needs to be a problem in space. Simply add that to the gigantic list of conditions that prevent space travel. I highly doubt that HSV-1 is anywhere near 60% in the pool of astronaut candidates. Disease presence is correlated: if you have one, you probably have another. Since lots of other diseases would already be disqualifying, adding HSV-1 to the checklist won't strike off very many potential astronauts.
- icedchai 8y agoOkay, so otherwise qualified and highly skilled people should not be allowed into space due to a potentially minor skin condition. Makes sense. What if they break out with severe acne on the way to the launch pad?
- wakon 8y agoNASA could send a control group of astronauts to space with NO duties and see if it has any effect on health (relative to those with “jobs”). Space travel is surely stressful, but perhaps the additional pressure of having tight schedules and deliverables is an additional stress?
- saagarjha 8y agoThat seems like it would be an extremely expensive experiment.
- JimmyAustin 8y agoMake it a rich person, call it space tourism and you could make it profitable.
- freeflight 8y agoThat makes me think of Richard Garriott [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight
- usrusr 8y agoAbsence of duties, schedules and deliverables can be quite a stress factor as well. I would not be surprised if that control group would end up suffering even more from being locked up in a free-falling can.
- the2and7 8y agoI get cold sores when I fly commercial airlines.
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