Visceral predictors of cardiovascular deconditioning in late middle-aged men

A major task for space biologists is to try to delineate methods which can be used to predict the degree of cardiovascular deconditioning that given individuals might develop while in space. Toward that end, we have studied a number of different visceral and behavioral variables in a group of late middle-aged men (55-65 years) on day 1 and day 5 of a bedrest regimen. During each 8-h study period, data were collected every 15 min. Mean arterial blood pressure and plasma cortisol and norepinephrine concentrations were significantly higher on the day 5 than on the day 1 of bedrest; heart rate, core temperature, plasma epinephrine and subjective arousal were unchanged. Pair-wise correlations between each of these variables and the time to blackout on a +3-Gz test of acceleration tolerance administered on day 9 of bedrest (mean decrease in latencies from prebedrest was 52%) revealed a significant correlation for the mean arterial blood pressure variable. Thus, these data indicate that men in this age span with relatively low resting blood pressures are at greater risk for developing clinical signs relating to their cardiovascular deconditioning than other men with higher basal blood pressures.