KAATSU For Space Colonization, Applications By SpaceX, Blue Origin

KAATSU For Space Colonization, Applications By SpaceX, Blue Origin

For who? Astronauts
For what? Sarcopenia, muscle maintenance, muscle atrophy, bone maintanence, bone degeneration (osteoarthritis)

In various research studies, KAATSU has been found to help prevent muscle atrophy during space flight (e.g., Hemodynamic responses to simulated weightlessness of 24-h head-down bed rest and KAATSU blood flow restriction).

Fundamentally, these research results indicate that KAATSU can stimulate a gravity-like stress during weightlessness, which can replicate the physiological outcome of standing back on earth. KAATSU reproduces the effects on the heart rate, stroke volume, norepinephrine, vasopressin, and plasma renin activity. while stimulating a gravity-like stress during weightlessness.

Fundamentally, these research results indicate that KAATSU reproduces the effects of standing on heart rate, stroke volume, norepinephrine, vasopressin, plasma renin activity.

So not only can muscle mass be maintained in space flight, but also the blood circulation continues as it normally does in the upright position while on Earth. On a practical basis, use of KAATSU can help maintain the health and wellness of astronauts, but the short and efficient KAATSU sessions can also enable more research time for experiments and important research.

Muscle mass and bone denisty are normally decreased in space. But to prevent this, astronauts exercise on fixed equipment in the International Space Station at least six times per week for hours. In order to decrease the exercise time and increase the scientific work time in an effective, low-cost manner, the Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation worked with Dr. Sato and his KAATSU scientific collaborators to produce prototype KAATSU space equipment in 2006.

“But now with Elon Musk with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin exploring and moving quickly to expand colonies and civilization to other planets, the issue of muscle mass and bone density maintenance becomes even more important,” says Steven Munatones. “Now KAATSU is not only a reasonable solution for human health for space travel, but also what happens to the human body during short- or long-term colonization on planets with significantly less gravitational pull like the moon and Mars? This is where the application of KAATSU is an extremely low-cost, highly effective, highly efficient, portable, extremely small-scale solution to the human physiological issues of space travel and space colonization.”

Dr. Gary E. Strangman of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues Doctors Vladimir Ivkovic, Quan Zhang, Aaron Baggish, Adam Cohen, Brian Nahed, Aaron Dentinger, Eric Bershad, and Eric Rosenthal looked into testing KAATSU equipment for its potential to reduce elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) in astronauts and those in zero gravity conditions.

In their report, Dr. Strangman notes,

“In a handful of astronauts, elevated ICP has been found days or months post‐flight (measured by lumbar puncture). This visual impairment and intracranial pressure (VIIP) condition varies notably across astronauts.

To date, no countermeasures have been tested for VIIP, although two countermeasures have been utilized in spaceflight to mitigate in‐flight
cephalad fluid shifts (and related cardiovascular changes): (1) Russian‐made Braslet thigh cuffs, and (2) lower‐body negative pressure (LBNP). Both help redistribute blood from the upper body into the lower extremities, for a more Earth‐equivalent fluid distribution. Both have operational challenges, including availability, obtrusiveness, and calibration.”

So they studied and tested KAATSU, the first in space.

His explanation is posted above.

In Japan at the University of Tokyo Hospital, its cardiologists also studied blood flow in the brain with subjects doing KAATSU and documented the resultant improved blood flow in the brain when subjects were tested with MRI scanners.