The Heart and Cardiovascular System NASA-supported life sciences research has advanced our understanding of the heart and cardiovascular system. This knowledge benefits both the space program and patients on Earth with heart disease, abnormal blood pressure and circulatory disturbances. This problem, a drop in blood pressure with standing that can lead to fainting, also affects hundreds of thousands of Americans. The recent Neurolab space shuttle missions and associated ground studies provide a comprehensive understanding of blood pressure control that can be applied to both patients and astronauts.
Space missions promote the development of equipment to perform cardiovascular tests.
For example, Spacelabs Inc., a leading supplier of medical devices, began with a NASA contract to monitor the vital signs of astronauts during the Gemini program. NASA currently supports efforts on new, non-invasive cardiac monitoring techniques. Weightlessness may cause the heart muscle to shrink. NASA supports research on how heart muscle cells sense and respond to the load placed upon them. Some studies investigate cardiac genes that modulate growth and these studies may have wide-ranging applications particularly to patients with heart failure, high blood pressure and heart attacks.