UAE-US plan to send first diabetic astronaut to space

Burjeel Medical City chief medical officer Dr. Mohammad Fityan told Gulf Today, “The preliminary data is showing that there is no significant change in the blood glucose levels in the outer space compared to Earth.”

- Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Two diabetes monitoring gadgets have been proved to even work in the extraterrestrial environment.

While this initial conclusion brightens up the path in addressing the debilitating disease to which 3.4 million people worldwide had succumbed to in 2024, two private organisations in the UAE and USA have announced plans of sending into outer space the world's first astronaut with diabetes. Burjeel Holdings founded 18 years ago in the UAE capital and Axiom Space set up nine years back in Houston, Texas, also announced on Thursday, from the Burjeel Institute for Global Health in New York City, the results of the June 25 to July 14 18-Day International Space Station (ISS) “Suite Ride,” in the presence of Burjeel Holdings founder/chairman Dr. Shamsheer Vayalil and Axiom Space chief executive officer Tejpal Bhatia.

The Internal Medicine consultant was interviewed prior to the June 25 outer space ascent of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4 Mission) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

He clarified then that the “focus” of the joint project was “not on treating astronauts with diabetes. Rather, to explore how glucose metabolism behaves in space.