PARIS: Ever since the global Space Station (ISS) has started orbiting the Earth, people have all sorts of curiosities about experiments in space, the most recent one dealing with the way medicine’s viability is altered up there.
Medicines on Earth tend to expire after a specific time and they degrade earlier when they are exposed to heat or light, humid surroundings and oxygen.
A study contucted by Virginia Wotring of the Center for Space Medicine and Department of Pharmacology at Baylor College of Medicine in the US suggests that the medicines that have been stored on the worldwide Space Station are not degrading faster than what is typically observed with medicines on Earth.
The study’s findings were published this week in the AAPS Journal. These medicines, which included painkillers, antidiarrheal drugs, sleeping pills, antihistamines and alertness drugs, were kept for three to five months on Earth under controlled conditions before they were studied. The flight team will not be able to restock their medicines as the ISS can.
