- Providing astronauts with the right diet is also paramount in supporting their mental and cognitive health, in a way unlike previous missions.
- That includes acknowledging the role of microbes in mental health and wellbeing, and providing astronauts with the right foods and conditions for a variety of these beneficial microbes to grow.
- Here’s why a healthy balance of microbes is important under such challenging conditions, and how we could put microbes on the menu.
Why are missions to Mars so challenging?
- Deep space missions will expose humans to immense physical and psychological challenges.
- These include prolonged isolation from loved ones, extreme space and resource constraints, and the difficulties of microgravity.
Why is diet important for mental health?
- We already know the quality of people’s diet not only influences their physical health, but also their mental and brain health.
- Diet quality is consistently and independently linked to the risk of depression or anxiety.
Diet can have such consequences by altering:
Diet can also influence the many ways microbes in the gut affect the brain, a link known as the microbiota gut-brain axis.
Read more:
Essays on health: microbes aren't the enemy, they're a big part of who we are
Not all foods make the grade
- Space foods need to appeal to a diverse crew and stay nutritious for an extremely long time (likely a three- to five-year mission).
- They also need to be lightweight and compact enough to fit on the spacecraft.
Why are microbes so important?
- We have co-evolved with, and are hosts to, trillions of different microbes that live on our skin and in all our niches and cavities.
- Gut microbes influence our mental health and behaviour, and these, in turn, influence our gut microbes.
- So ensuring all astronauts have the healthiest and most diverse of microbes for the whole of the mission is vital.
How could we encourage healthy microbes?
- We also need to think about how we grow the food if we are to support healthy microbiomes.
- Indeed, microbes play an essential role in the nutrient and phytochemical content of plants, and the microbes in soil, plants and humans are interconnected.
- Some types have a meat-like flavour and texture, and can provide all the amino acids humans need as well as useful byproducts from the microbes themselves.
- Fermentation itself creates thousands of different bioactive molecules, including some vitamins, that have diverse beneficial effects on health, including possible benefits to mental health.
- Probiotics are live microbes that have demonstrated health benefits and prebiotics are food for these healthy microbes.
Benefits on Earth too
We’re only at the start of learning how to optimise microbes to keep space crews healthy, which is crucial for long space flights and for possible settlement on other planets. However, this research could have many other applications. We can use what we learn to help create self-sustaining and sustainable food systems on Earth to improve the environment and human health.
- She is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Dauten Family Centre for Bipolar Treatment Innovation and Zoe Limited.
- Dorit Donoviel is Executive Director, NASA-Funded Translational (moving products from lab-bench to practice) Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine.
