taconacho

It's not that surprising. Howard University is 95% black (source: <a href="http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl...) and is one of the lowest ranked colleges in terms of diversity. Coming from such a culturally closed-off environment to a different one comprised mostly of whites and Asians of different ethnicities and nationalities would definitely result in culture shock.

The symptoms match health effects caused by a sedentary lifestyle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedentary_lifestyle#Health_eff... . In a gravitational environment, just moving around is a form of exercise since one has to move about the entire weight of one's body. In space, where everything is weightless, it takes much less effort to move around and you see the same effects (even with rigorous exercise routines). Imagine exercising for an hour or two and then sitting down for the other 22 hours. You'd end up with similar health effects.

Looks like my mistake was in thinking that the stated effects were occurring after astronauts had returned to Earth. At least that's what the title sounds like. If these symptoms only apply to humans while they are in a weightless environment then it sounds very much like sedentary disease (aka sitting disease). Even rigorous exercise routines can't fully match the effects of gravity on the human body.

Is there a citation for the following claim? I've never heard of such a thing:

"But then more results started coming back. Not only do astronauts come back with weak muscles and frail bones… But they also suffer from skin thinning, atherosclerosis (stiffer arteries), resistance to insulin and they suffer from loss of vision due to cataracts many years earlier than expected given their chronological age. These symptoms look a lot like skin aging, cardiovascular aging, age-related diabetes and so forth. In fact, it is pretty accurate to say that astronauts age at an accelerated rate."