# astro-licious!



## Guest (Jan 7, 2001)

The right stuffBronwyn McLarenIT LOOKS JUST LIKE ordinary yoghurt. It even tastes like it. But a new line of yoghurt due to be launched in Russia this autumn contains bacteria with an illustrious pedigree--they were taken from the saliva and guts of some of the Soviet and Russian space programme's most distinguished astronauts. The yoghurts are being touted by their makers as a health food. And although Western microbiologists see no particular reason why bacterial cultures taken from astronauts should be any healthier than standard cultures, the space connection certainly provides a unique selling point. For the past 25 years, microbiologists at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, working in a small lab at the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, have been culturing strains of bacteria from astronauts and using them to make yoghurt. The stresses of space flight can upset astronauts' immunity, allowing potentially dangerous bacteria to oust benign inhabitants of astronauts' guts, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. In the early 1980s, microbiologists attached to the Soviet space programme began developing the yoghurts as a remedy to these problems, giving them to astronauts as they prepared for space flights. The yoghurts were also sent into space to help control urinary tract infections that occurred on the Mir space station in 1989 and 1995. Nadezhda Lizko, who led the yoghurt project, says that most Soviet and Russian astronauts have contributed to the biomedical institute's bank of cultures. "They are big fans of our yoghurt," she says. In the harsh financial reality of today's Russia, however, the yoghurts have become more than a natural remedy for sickly astronauts--they are now a potential money-spinner for the biomedical institute. Lizko and her team have diversified their range of products to include fruit-flavoured yoghurts, cottage cheese and traditional Russian cheeses studded with garlic and herbs. From the autumn, the researchers hope to produce 2 tonnes of dairy products a day at a lab in the Kaluga region, north of Moscow. Although samples haven't been collected since 1993, Lizko has 1000 cultures of astronaut's gut bacteria--enough to sustain the business indefinitely. She claims that astronauts make ideal culture donors for live yoghurts. "They are under constant and strict observation of a whole range of medical specialists," Lizko says. "The slightest change in their physical condition is instantly noticed. We only collect cultures that are proven able to withstand extreme conditions." Michael Pariza, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, agrees that astronauts are in exemplary physical condition. However, he says there's no evidence that their cultures would produce a healthier yoghurt.From New Scientist, 14 August 1999


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