"Yuck," he said.
Reid, chairman of the physiology department at the University of Kentucky, is testing a drug that one day might help space-suited astronauts work better in outer space, and also might make life a little easier for earthbound medical patients. To find out, he's drinking the stuff himself _ downing a cupful of evil-tasting liquid once each week.
Backed by NASA, Reid is researching the 50-year-old drug "N-acetylcysteine" (NAC for short) which is known to inhibit muscle fatigue by limiting the buildup of free radicals in muscle tissue during heavy exercise. He hopes to prove that astronauts in orbit above Earth could take the drug to prevent the muscle exhaustion that often grips them when they do extended outside work in space suits, such as performing construction on the international space station or completing maintenance on the space shuttle.
Each time Reid drinks the liquid, he completes a series of hand-strength exercises designed to detect any changes in his degree of muscle fatigue.
The study is double blind, which means that neither Reid nor his associate, Leonardo Ferreira, knows whether Reid is actually drinking NAC or a salt-solution placebo. Reid says both the placebo and the drug taste equally bad. And to make sure Reid can't tell one drink from another, some NAC-soaked gauze is placed in the room at each "tasting," so that the air is filled with the drug's characteristic rotten-eggs smell. The study is organized so that Reid gets the active drug some weeks, and the placebo others.
Nine other volunteers are participating in this study, following the same regimen. There are 40 volunteers in all.
It is relatively rare for medical researchers to participate in their own studies, but Reid has been doing it throughout his career.
"I've never done a human experiment that I didn't participate in myself as a subject," he said. "I think it gives me a perspective that I couldn't get any other way."
NAC has been around since the 1950s. It is used in medicine to protect the liver from damage by free radicals _ destructive forms of oxygen that are produced in the body under certain conditions. Many health food outlets also sell NAC as an anti-oxidant in pill form (though at doses far below those Reid is testing).
Dr. Jerry Supinski, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University who is now at UK, was the first to demonstrate that a buildup of free-radicals in muscles during heavy workouts caused muscles to become fatigued.
Reid, who has been working on the drug for years, in turn was the first to demonstrate that NAC could delay fatigue in human muscles by inhibiting free radicals. He did that work at Baylor University, and brought his experiments with him when he joined UK in 2003.
At this point, Reid says, there's no question that taking NAC really does inhibit muscle fatigue.
The issue, and the main goal in Reid's research, is determining a dosage level that works to prevent fatigue, but doesn't cause NAC's known side effects of severe gas and diarrhea.
"That's two things you don't want if you're wearing a space suit," he quipped.
NASA is interested in the drug because muscle fatigue is a serious problem for astronauts working in space suits.
Everything in orbit is weightless. But Reid notes that space suits are inflated and therefore stiff, which means astronauts must labor just to move their arms, hands and fingers.
"Astronauts say that doing six or eight hours of extra-vehicular activity is just like running a marathon; they're completely exhausted afterward," Reid.
Perfecting NAC as a drug that could limit that fatigue and improve astronauts' endurance, would be a boon to the space program, Reid says. But the drug also could have important applications right here on earth.
Potentially, it could help provide relief for many patients with medical problems complicated by muscle fatigue, Reid says. They might include those with congestive heart failure, various forms of cancer, AIDS and emphysema, as well as elderly patients coping with broken bones or damaged joints, he said.
Reid hopes to wrap up his current experiment this summer. Other researchers around the country also are testing NAC.
According to Reid, NASA astronauts could be taking NAC to prevent muscle fatigue within about two years, if the research continues to go well. It would be a few years after that before patients use NAC routinely on Earth, although Reid and his colleagues recently received approval to give the drug to a few volunteer patients on an experimental basis.
Farther down the road, Reid and his partners think their work also could have implications for the muscle-wasting problems that are expected to plague astronauts on extended space missions to Mars and beyond.
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(c) 2008, Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.).
Visit the World Wide Web site of the Herald-Leader at http://www.kentucky.com/
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PHOTO (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): yuckydrug
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