Published online Apr 14, 2013. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v19.i14.2208
Revised: January 11, 2013
Accepted: January 23, 2013
Published online: April 14, 2013
AIM: To develop an integrated approach for monitoring gastrointestinal motility and inflammation state suitable for application in long-term spaceflights.
METHODS: Breath tests based on the oral administration of 13C-labeled or hydrogen-producing substrates followed by the detection of their metabolites (13CO2 or H2) in breath were used to measure gastrointestinal motility parameters during the 520-d spaceflight ground simulation within the MARS-500 Project. In particular, the gastric emptying rates of solid and liquid contents were evaluated by 13C-octanoic acid and 13C-acetate breath tests, respectively, whereas the orocecal transit time was assessed by an inulin H2-breath test, which was performed simultaneously with the 13C-octanoic acid breath test. A ready-to-eat, standardized pre-packaged muffin containing 100 mg of 13C-octanoic acid was used in the 13C-octanoic acid breath test to avoid the extemporaneous preparation of solid meals. In addition, a cassette-type lateral flow immunoassay was employed to detect fecal calprotectin, a biomarker of intestinal inflammation. Because no items could be introduced into the simulator during the experiment, all materials and instrumentation required for test performance during the entire mission simulation had to be provided at the beginning of the experiment.
RESULTS: The experiments planned during the simulation of a manned flight to Mars could be successfully performed by the crewmembers without any external assistance. No evident alterations (i.e., increasing or decreasing trends) in the gastric emptying rates were detected using the 13C-breath tests during the mission simulation, as the gastric emptying half-times were in the range of those reported for healthy subjects. In contrast to the 13C-breath tests, the results of the inulin H2-breath test were difficult to interpret because of the high variability of the H2 concentration in the breath samples, even within the same subject. This variability suggested that the H2-breath test was strongly affected by external factors, which may have been related to the diet of the crewmembers or to environmental conditions (e.g., the accumulation of hydrogen in the simulator microenvironment). At least in closed microenvironments such as the MARS-500 simulator, 13C-breath tests should therefore be preferred to H2-breath tests. Finally, the fecal calprotectin test showed significant alterations during the mission simulation: all of the crewmembers were negative for the test at the beginning of the simulation but showed various degrees of positivity in at least one of the subsequent tests, thus indicating the onset of an intestinal inflammation.
CONCLUSION: Breath tests, especially those 13C-based, proved suitable for monitoring gastrointestinal motility in the 520-d isolation experiment within MARS-500 project and can be applied in long-term spaceflights.