骨质疏松成宇航员职业病

EarthSky spoke with biomedical engineer Ted Bateman of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. With support from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, he’s testing therapies to help protect the bones of astronauts in space from radiation.

今天节目组采访了北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的生物医学工程师泰德．贝特曼。在国家空间生物医学研究所的支持下，贝特曼着力试验各种疗法，保护宇航员的骨骼不受宇宙辐射的影响。

Ted Bateman: You’ve got astronauts, on average, losing one to two percent per month, which is very rapid, compared to causes for osteoporosis here on Earth.

泰德．贝特曼：在太空执行任务的宇航员平均每个月会流失1%到2%的骨骼，与骨质疏松症患者相比，这种速度大得惊人。

In other words, said Bateman, astronauts in space can lose about as much bone in a month as an average senior citizen loses in a year here on Earth. Using micro computed tomography in studies on mice, Bateman found that space radiation rapidly attacks bone health.

贝特曼说，换言之，宇航员在太空中逗留一个月流失的骨量相当于老年人一年流失的骨量。应用X射线微型计算机断层扫描技术进行老鼠实验，他发现空间辐射将对骨质健康造成严重破坏。

Ted Bateman: From that, we’ve decided to initiate a couple of clinical trials to see if what we’re observing in mice is real in human cancer patients. And based on those preliminary data, we’re also seeing a very rapid decline in bone mass in cancer patients on the order of as fast as what astronauts experience from microgravity.

泰德．贝特曼：在此基础上，我们决定做一些临床试验来检验鼠身上发生的现象是否会发生在癌症患者身上。初步数据表明，试验中癌症患者的骨量也发生了急剧流失，速度类似于宇航员在微重力环境下的骨质流失。

Bateman said he’s hopeful that his research on drug therapies for the bone degenerative disease osteoporosis will one day help both astronauts and cancer patients here on Earth.

贝特曼表示，他相信目前对于骨骼退化病骨质疏松症的药物疗法研究最终将造福于宇航员及癌症患者。