Originally published July 17 2005
Astronaut diet could be healthy for earth-locked as well
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Texas A & M has an interview with a professor of nutritional sciences, who says the same diet that helps astronauts avoid DNA damage from radiation could help regular people get more antioxidants into their diet.
An apple a day, by itself, probably won't keep the doctor away.
But if the apple is part of a diet loaded with pectin fiber from fruits and vegetables, and omega-3-rich fish oils, it might go a long way toward keeping colon cancer away.
That apple and fish-friendly diet could end up where no one has gone before.
Those are the findings of Dr. Lisa Merle Sanders, who recently earned her doctorate in nutrition from Texas A&M University.
"Radiation exposure is the most limiting factor to long-term space flight," she said.
"This research shows diet to be a potential countermeasure to damage from long-term radiation exposure and therefore may increase the safety of long space missions, such as the proposed mission to Mars."
NASA has plans for a three-year mission to Mars, possibly sometime in the next 10 to 20 years, Sanders said.
NASA wants to develop countermeasures to radiation (exposure in space).
And that diet is one rich in pectin fiber like that found in fruits and vegetables, and in omega-3-rich fish oil found in different kinds of sea food.
Because the atmosphere is thinner and its protection less at higher elevations, "People at higher altitudes receive greater radiation exposure," she said.
International flights are at much higher altitudes and are much longer (than other flights).
Dr. Joanne Lupton of the department of nutrition and food science at Texas A&M and committee chairman for Sanders' research, said the study shows "the differences between the small intestine and the large intestine with response to DNA damage.
If normal cells are damaged by carcinogens -- whether dietary or environmental -- and those cells are sloughed off in the normal fashion, no lasting damage occurs.
Both Sanders and Lupton said their research has influenced dietary changes in their own lives.
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