Space travel takes many tolls on the human body, and new research suggests long-duration flights are changing astronauts’ blood. According to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine, astronauts’ bodies are destroying their own blood cells while in space at higher rates than on Earth.
“Space anemia has consistently been reported when astronauts returned to Earth since the first space missions, but we didn’t know why,” says study author Guy Trudel, a rehabilitation physician and researcher at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, in a statement. “Our study shows that upon arriving in space, more red blood cells are destroyed, and this continues for the entire duration of the astronaut’s mission.”
