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Red blood cell and iron metabolism during space flight
1Human Adaptation and Countermeasures Office, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058, USA. scott.m.smith1@jsc.nasa.gov
Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.)
|October 4, 2002
Abstract:
Space flight anemia is a widely recognized phenomenon in astronauts. Reduction in circulating red blood cells and plasma volume results in a 10% to 15% decrement in circulatory volume. This effect appears to be a normal physiologic adaptation to weightlessness and results from the removal of newly released blood cells from the circulation. Iron availability increases, and (in the few subjects studied) iron stores increase during long-duration space flight. The consequences of these changes are not fully understood.