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• Posted July 23, 2024

How Well Would Meds Work on a Mission to Mars?

How many drugs in your bathroom medicine cabinet have expired?

Now imagine you have no way of refilling them, because you’re millions of miles from home.

That’s the dilemma that will face astronauts on a Mars mission, a new study warns.

More than half of the medicines stocked on the International Space Station would expire before a mission to Mars could make it back to Earth, results show.

These include staples like pain relievers, antibiotics, allergy medicines and sleep aids.

Astronauts on their way back from Mars could end up relying on drugs that have become either ineffective or even harmful over time, researchers reported July 23 in the journal Microgravity.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean the medicines won't work, but in the same way you shouldn’t take expired medications you have lying around at home, space exploration agencies will need to plan on expired medications being less effective,” said senior researcher Dr. Daniel Buckland, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C.

For the study, researchers reviewed the formulary of medications kept on the International Space Station (ISS), assuming NASA would stock similar drugs on a Mars mission.

“Prior experience and research show astronauts do get ill on the International Space Station, but there is real-time communication with the ground and a well-stocked pharmacy that is regularly resupplied, which prevents small injuries or minor illnesses from turning into issues that affect the mission,” Buckland said in a Duke news release.  

About 54 of the 91 medications kept on the ISS had a shelf life of three years or less, researchers found.

About three of five of these drugs would expire before a Mars mission could return home, under the most optimistic estimates, researchers said. Under more conservative estimates, as many as 98% of the drugs would expire, they added.

What’s more, the study didn’t consider the likelihood that drugs stored in space might lose their potency more quickly, researchers added.

Earthbound medications can lose a little to a lot of their strength as they age past their expiration date, researchers said.

But the stability and potency of medications in space remains largely unknown, researchers said. Weightlessness, radiation and other factors could reduce drugs’ effectiveness even more over time.

“Those responsible for the health of space flight crews will have to find ways to extend the expiration of medications to complete a Mars mission duration of three years, select medications with longer shelf lives or accept the elevated risk associated with administering expired medication,” said researcher Thomas Diaz, a pharmacy resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  

More information

The Pharmaceutical Journal has more about drugs in space.

SOURCE: Duke University, news release, July 23, 2024