Does going to the moon increase risk of heart attacks?
I can’t tell from this study, because I consider it insufficiently controlled. For instance, they don’t say what generation they pulled the data from. A sixty-year old today is likely to be in a different state of health than one from thirty years ago. For all I know, the Apollo astronauts got their heart attacks from terrible dietary advice in the seventies, as my father did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apollo_astronauts_who_walked_on_the_Moon
Of the twelve men who walked on the moon, the first to die was James Irwin, 20 years after he walked on the moon at age 61. Pete Conrad died at age 69, 30 years after he walked on the moon. Alan Shepard died at age 74, Armstrong and Mitchell died in their 80s, and the other seven are still alive and 80+.
Of those who orbited without landing: Swigert died at age 51, Roosa was 61, Evans was 56. All the rest are still alive and 80+.
Now let’s compare to their age cohort. Most of these guys have outlived their contemporaries. with only 5 out of 24 to have died before the median lifespan of people born circa 1930.
Of course all of these men were in top physical condition to begin with, and it is possible that they’d have all lived to be centenarians had they not gone to the moon. But, 24 is too small a sample size from which to extrapolate meaningful conclusions. Must send more people.
Yeah I had the same thoughts. Just too few people went to the Moon to take any solid conclusions about something like this.
If the sample size is too small then why did the results reach statistical significance? Though I think that there’s plenty of other issues with this study. The astronaut is not a prospective study. It is case-controlled and not randomized. Given the situation and ethical problems of human studies I’m not sure that anything else could have been done. Still, it is research like this that makes me think that we may not be allowed to go to Mars. At some point someone is going to have to say, “You know what? We’re just going to have to go and do it even if uncertain risks prove catastrophic”. If we don’t do it then some other country will.
I think we could only ascribe significance if there had been immediate effects. If they all had heart attacks regularly when they got back, for instance. It’s pretty thin gruel to ascribe any ill effects that weren’t immediately noted when two thirds of these guys are still alive four decades later.
They’re still counting deaths from Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they die today!
Humans seems to be resilient, did any of these astronauts have a mission duration of any significance to impact the rest of their lives?
PS, always enjoy your contributions to the Space Show.
If the sample size is too small then why did the results reach statistical significance?
If you look at enough different ailments, then not reaching statistical significance for something just by random chance would be unlikely.
One obvious remedy is to rely on really really fat astronauts whose hearts will be better protected from radiation. The upper limit is probably determined by the size of the hatch we can squeeze them through.
Then, even if the cosmic radiation still gave them heart disease, how could we tell? They’re fat and going to have heart disease anyway.
<– should work at NASA.
I can see George’s bosses frantically trying to stuff him back into the box!
But seriously, no matter what you do, you have some effect on future risk. If over half the guys in a study live into their 80s I conclude it’s an interesting but not significant bit of trivia what happens to the rest. I’ve had too much experience with doctors (and some researchers) to believe any large fraction of what they claim.
Last year several doctors had me on a pill that had serious bad side effects. When I discussed it with them they all said the same thing, “it’s not supposed to do that.” As if that was the end of the story. The real end of the story is I got off that pill and the problem went away.
The, “That’s not supposed to happen.” Line always sucks.
Given the ages of the surviving astronauts, another way to take the study is that cosmic ray exposure lowers your risk of dying from anything but heart disease.
As I recall, that was pretty much the rationale for sending John Glenn up on the shuttle – to see how elderly people handled the rigors of launch and the effects of weightlessness. Well, one elderly former astronaut with considerable political pull, anyhow.
24 is too small a sample size from which to extrapolate meaningful conclusions.
Agree.
I don’t recall where I first read it but I do know that there was some mention that some early “moon walkers” were suspected of possibly damaging their hearts with a combination of over exertion during EVA and lack of potassium intake. This led to the notorious “flatulence inducing” potassium laced orange juice later astronauts were instructed to drink in large quantities.
I don’t know how one would determine which had more effect on lunar astronauts heart health: radiation, potassium deficiency or other factors. Like has been stated already, the sample size is too small at any rate.
Sounds like they need to add dehydrated bananas to the menu.
Liquid was used so they could take drinks of it while on EVA through a siphon tube mounted in the helmet neck ring.
The lunar astronauts themselves are far too small a sample to be statistically meaningful.
Ah, the perils of Small Sample Size.
It’s just as worth pointing out that three astronauts went to cislunar space TWICE: Jim Lovell, John Young, and Gene Cernan.
And all three are still alive today.
Yes, but with a double dose of cosmic ray exposure those three sometimes wake up with their clothes all shredded and then wonder who the giant green monster is on the local TV news.