The stranded NASA astronaut who is at the center of growing health fears has finally broken her silence in a video recorded from space.
Health experts and NASA insiders had raised concerns that 59-year-old Sunita Williams was losing weight rapidly after photos appeared to show her looking “skinny” earlier this month after spending more than 150 days on the International Space Station .
But Williams responded to the ‘rumors’ in a live video published today by NASA, claiming she has actually gained muscle.
‘My thighs are a little bigger, my butt is a little bigger. We do a lot of squats,” she said.
She added that she is the same weight she was when she launched to the ISS in June, and bizarrely claimed that the apparent change in her appearance was due to ‘fluid shift’.
“I think things are changing quite a bit, you’ve probably heard of a fluid shift,” Williams said.
‘FOlks in space, you know, their heads look a little bigger because the fluid is spreading along the body.’
During spaceflight, weightlessness immediately shifts blood and fluids from the lower part of the body to the upper parts, which can sometimes result in a swollen pace and thinner legs.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has broken her silence on fears her health has deteriorated since being stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).
Concerns about her health surfaced when she was shown a photo from September with ‘sunken’ cheeks and a thinner frame
Williams and her crewmate Barry Wilmore, 61, have been living on the ISS for five months after Boeing’s faulty Starliner spacecraft was deemed unsafe to return them to Earth.
The mission was initially expected to last just eight days, but the astronauts will not return until February 2025.
Williams spoke to the New England Sports Network Clubhouse Kids Show on Tuesday while more than 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.
During the interview, she discussed health concerns, mentioned “rumors,” and discussed her food intake, such as dining on a patio Turkish fish stew with olives and rice.
Williams did not provide details about her calorie intake aboard the ISS.
A photo taken on September 24 initially sparked health fears. A doctor told DailyMail.com at the time that her cheeks looked ‘sunken’, possibly due to rapid weight loss.
Dr. Vinay Gupta, a pulmonologist and veteran in Seattle, told DailyMail.com at the time that while she did not appear to be in a place where her life was in danger, “I don’t think you can look at that photo and say she did that ‘. a kind of healthy body weight.’
More recently, a NASA source told the New York Post that NASA is making efforts to “stabilize and hopefully reverse the weight loss.”
The unnamed employee “directly involved with the mission” said Williams “has not been able to keep up with the high-calorie diets that astronauts are required to consume” while on the ISS.
‘The kilos have fallen off her and she is now skin and bones. So it’s a priority to help her stabilize and hopefully reverse the weight loss,” the NASA source told the newspaper New York Post.
Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore before their mission on June 5. Williams said she is now the same weight she was at launch
Williams did not elaborate on her calorie intake while on the ISS, but alluded that she ate well
Williams and Wilmore will have to wait another three to four months before they can return to Earth on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
At this time, there is no indication that Williams’ alleged decline in health will impact this timeline.
But the female body suffers more in space than their male counterparts.
A 2014 NASA study found that women lose a greater volume of blood plasma than men during spaceflight, and that women’s stress response typically includes an increase in heart rate, while men respond with an increase in vascular resistance.
The loss of blood plasma causes your metabolism to temporarily increase while your body mobilizes resources to adapt to the loss of plasma.
And this response can slightly increase your calorie burn, resulting in weight loss similar to what Williams may experience.
Another study published in 2023 by Ball University also found that women lose more muscle mass than men in microgravity environments such as spaceflight.
“The amount of oxygen in the air is lower than at baseline, their nutritional intake will not be as robust as on the ground,” Dr. Gupta said.
‘Their opportunities to exercise will be limited. So any kind of physiological variable that defines our well-being is going to be suboptimal, especially even in a pressurized cabin, but in their case in space, right?
“So what you see there in that photo, especially with Sunita, is someone who I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at very high altitudes, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods of time.”