“So, normally in the gravity of Earth, the body constantly breaks down bone and rebuilds it to repair microfractures and to regulate the supply of calcium in the blood. But this goes out of balance in microgravity.”Article contentStudies have shown that exercise alone is not enough to prevent bone density loss in space, said Yates.
The team landed on two types of lettuce for their proof of concept: romaine and crisphead . The former grows well in the conditions they would expect to have in space; they selected the latter because it showed the best performance in their initial selection. Astronauts could potentially grow their own treatment for bone density loss on long spaceflights, such as to Mars and back, say UC Davis researchers.Astronauts would need to eat about eight cups of lettuce a day to get the desired dosage. Since that’s a lot of salad, the researchers are trying to increase the amount of the drug so that astronauts don’t have to consume as much.Yates adds that the behaviour of the molecule — which is composed of two parts — will also affect the dosage.