
Herpes Virus Reactivation in Astronauts During Spaceflight - daegloe
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00016/full
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xkcd-sucks
Space is cool, but I didn't see any gravity related controls nor any other
space specific controls.

Consider that the relationship between stress (HPA axis, etc.) and viral
activation is pretty well known. Models of chronic rodent stress include
constant loud noise, uncomfortable environmental scale (open spaces versus
"comfortable" places with places to hide/nest), weird lighting and
temperature, "violent" (freaking them out, not hurting them) handling, etc.
These rodent models seem pretty similar to "put humans in a cramped little
box, shake them around and mess with their sleep and eating schedules".

There's nothing novel and space specific here except for "going to space is
stressful" and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

~~~
nabla9
I would humbly suggest submarine crews as control group.

Canned air, tight space, weird sleep cycles, noise and artificial light.
Submarine crews are even more isolated because they can't contact families
while underway.

~~~
freeflight
I'd imagine this whole "being strapped to a ton of explosives and using them
to fly" moment is a tad bit more extreme and stressful than a submarine dive.

After that, they both have similar constant stress factors, but imho the
launch alone is probably way more than what anybody on a submarine would go
through.

~~~
zeckalpha
Nuclear submarines?

~~~
craftyguy
I suspect that far more rockets have undergone rapid, unplanned disassembly
than nuclear submarines. And when they do, the death rate is very high.

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ncmncm
The article doesn't mention, among possible stressors, that spacecraft are
always operated at reduced air pressure and high oxygen fraction, and low
humidity.

The problem is, nobody knows which factors are actually responsible for
downregulating immune system activity, because every astronaut gets all of
them.

A few ought to be variable. Sleep deprivation ought to be entirely avoidable,
but NASA cannot quite manage not scheduling more to do in a day than there is
day.

~~~
sitharus
ISS, Soyuz and soon the crewed Dragon 2 all operate at sea-level air pressure
with standard o2 partial pressure. Apollo was the last high oxygen
environment.

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minikites
Reminder that the stigma against herpes is a pharmaceutical marketing creation
from the mid 1970s:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Society_and_cul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Society_and_culture)

>Pedro Cuatrecasas states, "during the R&D of acyclovir, marketing [department
of Burroughs Wellcome] insisted that there were 'no markets' for this
compound. Most had hardly heard of genital herpes..." Thus, marketing the
medical condition—separating the 'normal cold sore' from the 'stigmatized
genital infection' was to become the key to marketing the drug, a process now
known as 'disease mongering'.

>Much of the hysteria and stigma surrounding herpes stems from a media
campaign beginning in the late 1970s and peaking in the early 1980s. Multiple
articles were worded in fear-mongering and anxiety-provoking terminology, such
as the now-ubiquitous "attacks", "outbreaks", "victims", and "sufferers". At
one point, the term "herpetic" even entered the popular lexicon. The articles
were published by Reader's Digest, U.S. News, and Time magazine, among others.
A made-for-TV movie was named Intimate Agony. The peak was when Time magazine
had 'Herpes: The New Scarlet Letter' on the cover in August 1982, forever
stigmatizing the word in the public mind.

~~~
ericol
"The stigma against" is exclusively a US bound thing. I consume a lot of media
(Plus memes) from the US, and people make a real fuss about it.

In my country people give it the same importance as a simple cold.

~~~
trhway
widespread cold sores in a given society i think have 2 pronged effect:

1\. a something widespread does usually have naturally higher societal
acceptance

2\. [IANAD] kind of "de-facto" vaccination/immunization. For example i (like
many many Russians) have occasional cold sores (once in a 1-4 years, in CA
seems to be less frequently than back in Russia) since childhood. I've had it
on both sides of my lips which probably means that i have both - HSV1 and
HSV2. That also means that i never going to get it anywhere else on my body
(once any one site in the body gets infected with herpes the rest of the body
develops immunity)

From descriptions genital herpes seems to be worse than lip cold sores. In US
(at least in CA) i see no people with cold sores, so the majority of the
population is most probably susceptible to the infection. Given that sexual
contact is a frequent transmission method in adulthood (while not a factor in
childhood), i'm not surprised that for US population "herpes" statistically
means and happens as "genital herpes" (while i haven't heard about such a
thing back in Russia where we get it early in the childhood as cold sores on
lips).

~~~
snowwindwaves
>I've had it on both sides of my lips which probably means that i have both -
HSV1 and HSV2. That also means that i never going to get it anywhere else on
my body (once any one site in the body gets infected with herpes the rest of
the body develops immunity

This is all contrary to my understanding.

You can definitely spread either strain to other areas of your body. You can
spread it around your mouth more and transfer it from your mouth to your
genitals.

Thinking you can't get it more will not lead to pleasant outcomes.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
To clarify: you don't spread herpes around your mouth or genitals, because
that's not where herpes takes up latency.

HSV takes up latency in usually either the dorsal root ganglion (which
typically presents with lesions in the genital region), or in the trigeminal
ganglion which typically presents with oral lesions.

You are right that infection with one strain does not necessarily grant
immunity to infection with another strain.

It is also not true that oral lesions necessarily indicate HSV1 infection, and
that genital lesions necessarily indicate HSV2 infection.

Source:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47447/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47447/)

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bootlooped
I am surprised to see this data, because my impression was that you
essentially had to be a physically and mentally flawless human being to go
into space.

~~~
icedchai
Over 60% of humanity has HSV-1 [1], aka "cold sores" virus. When people "get
tested", they generally don't even check for it unless you request it, because
it would create unjustified concern.

[1] See [https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-10-2015-globally-
an-...](https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-10-2015-globally-an-estimated-
two-thirds-of-the-population-under-50-are-infected-with-herpes-simplex-virus-
type-1)

~~~
burfog
So almost 40% of humanity does not have HSV-1.

Astronaut selection is already severe. You don't get selected if you have
tuberculosis, diabetes, amputations, or deafness. Once selected, you won't go
on the launch if you are sick with the flu.

It doesn't seem like HSV-1 needs to be a problem in space. Simply add that to
the gigantic list of conditions that prevent space travel.

I highly doubt that HSV-1 is anywhere near 60% in the pool of astronaut
candidates. Disease presence is correlated: if you have one, you probably have
another. Since lots of other diseases would already be disqualifying, adding
HSV-1 to the checklist won't strike off very many potential astronauts.

~~~
nostrademons
It's related to age, as you would expect from any contagious virus that's
ubiquitous in the environment and doesn't go away. 0.01% of newborns have
HSV-1 [1]; 90% of 50-year-olds have it [2]. The 40% of humanity without HSV-1
are largely under 30. Your typical astronaut is much more likely to be towards
the 40-50 year old end of the scale.

[1]
[https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pediatrics/infecti...](https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pediatrics/infections-
in-neonates/neonatal-herpes-simplex-virus-hsv-infection)

[2]
[https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/adu...](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/adult/infectious_diseases/Oral_Herpes_22,OralHerpes)

~~~
Eleopteryx
It says "90 percent of adults have been exposed to the virus by age 50", but I
didn't think that exposure necessarily meant infection.

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bdamm
At first I thought this was going to be about breakouts of shingles on the
ISS, the thought of which nearly put me off spaceflight entirely. What a
relief!

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fixermark
Interesting to me personally because I'd never heard before that HSV-1
reactivation was stress-linked.

~~~
degenerate
If you ever had chicken pox, high stress can re-activate the dormant virus,
and it reactivates as "shingles". There is a vaccine that came out a few years
ago to suppress it from happening.

~~~
brewdad
I think the vaccine is only covered by insurance (USA) for people over 50 in
most cases. If you are lucky enough to have coverage, get the vaccine.
Shingles as an otherwise healthy 42 year old was no picnic, I can't imagine
how bad it must be for someone older or more immuno-compromised.

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wakon
NASA could send a control group of astronauts to space with NO duties and see
if it has any effect on health (relative to those with “jobs”). Space travel
is surely stressful, but perhaps the additional pressure of having tight
schedules and deliverables is an additional stress?

~~~
saagarjha
That seems like it would be an extremely expensive experiment.

~~~
JimmyAustin
Make it a rich person, call it space tourism and you could make it profitable.

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freeflight
That makes me think of Richard Garriott [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight)

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the2and7
I get cold sores when I fly commercial airlines.

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g45y45
"Filthy stinking astronauts" \-- upright citizens brigade
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-30442RII](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-30442RII)

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reaperducer
I was thinking "space herpes," but couldn't remember what movie it was from.

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sp332
Ice Pirates.

~~~
bcaulfield
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me2inj1nNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me2inj1nNw)

