Fluid and electrolyte shifts in women during +Gz acceleration after 15 days' bed rest.

Twelve women (23-34 yr), comprising a bed-rest (BR) group of eight subjects and an ambulatory (AMB) group of four subjects, were centrifuged after 14 days of ambulatory control (C),after 15 days of a 17-day BR period, and on the third day of recovery (R). Venous blood was taken before and after the third +3.0 G acceleration run (1.8 G/min). Relative to (C), the +Gz tolerance after BR was reduced -49.0% (P less than 0.05) in the BR group and -38.7% (NS) in the AMB group; during (R) the BR group regained up to 89.4% and the AMB group up to 87.1% of their (C) tolerances. In each of the three test periods, the shifts in plasma Na, Cl, PO4, and osmotic contents, which accompanied +Gz, followed the outward shift of plasma volume (PV). The correlation of the shift of PV during acceleration with the +Gz tolerance was 0.72 (P less than 0.01). During acceleration, the PV and electrolyte loss for both groups after BR was about half the loss of (C) and (R). Compared with (C) and (R) values, potassium shifts were variable but the mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular Hb contents and concentrations were unchanged during all +Gz runs; The results indicate that: 1) the higher the (C) + Gz tolerance, the greater the tolerance decline due to BR; 2) relative confinement and reduced activity contribute as much to the reduction in tolerance as does the horizontal body position during BR; 3) bed-rest deconditioning has no effect on the erythrocyte volume during +3.0 Gz; and 4) about one-half the loss in tolerance after BR can be attributed to PV and electrolyte shifts.