Space is the ideal environment to understand muscle aging

Space is an ideal laboratory for studying muscle aging and how muscles lose strength , known as sarcopenia . This is indicated by an experiment on the International Space Station that has allowed a process that takes decades to occur on Earth to be replicated in just a few weeks. Led by Siobhan Malany and Maddalena Parafati of the University of Florida, the research is published in the journal Stem Cell Reports. Due to the weightlessness experienced during space missions, astronauts experience a loss of muscle mass over the long term , a sarcopenia that typically occurs with aging . Muscle reduction can lead to weakness and, as a result, can create mobility problems. There are no treatments for this disorder other than lifestyle changes. To better understand what happens in this process, American researchers designed an experiment , conducted on the ISS in 2022 , in which muscle tissue taken from both young and active donors and elderly and sedentary donors was kept vital for several weeks in an automated mini-laboratory . In addition to regular feeding and monitoring of the cultures, the system allowed electrical stimulation of the tissues, thus simulating physical exercise . A similar experiment was conducted on Earth , in a twin device. In just two weeks in space, it was observed that muscle strength tends to decrease in young tissues, becoming comparable to that of elderly tissues, a phenomenon more limited in electrically stimulated tissues. The data indicate that space is an ideal environment for studying sarcopenia in the short term, both to develop potential therapies and to provide useful information to astronauts engaged in future long-term exploration missions .