Space travel may accelerate Alzheimer's disease

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers was in space for more than six months last year. Long-distance travel in the area includes a mission to Mars that presents astronaut exposure to a very unhealthy amount of cosmic radiation. This accelerates Alzheimer's disease, according to a U.S. study.
When research was funded by NASA, mice were exposed to different doses of radiation, including the number of astronauts they experienced on Mars' journey. Then, study the extent to which the animal can remember the object or place. The success of mice exposed to radiation was far lower than the usual tests, and researchers showed that the damage to the nervous system appeared earlier than normal.
"Cosmic rays constitute a major threat to future astronauts," said researcher Michael Obanning, a professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The results of the study show that researchers' first exposure to cognitive problems of radiation may appear to accelerate changes in the brain that can be associated with Alzheimer's disease. Some previous studies have shown that radiation, including cancer, may accelerate. In 2035, NASA plans to fly to a distant asteroid in 2021 and manned the mission of Mars. It takes about three years to return to this red planet. Earth's magnetic field protects human cosmic radiation.