Sunita Williams, a Nasa astronaut currently on the International Space Station, is healthy and not suffering from any medical problems, Nasa’s top medical officer said on Thursday.

The unusual pronouncement was prompted by news articles suggesting that Williams was experiencing health problems during an unplanned extended stay in orbit. That in turn set off widespread rumours on social media.

Williams, 59, addressed the issue directly on Tuesday during an interview with New England Sports Network.

“I think there’s some rumours around outside there that I’m losing weight and stuff,” she said. “No, I’m actually right at the same amount.”

Williams is one of the two astronauts whose stay at the space station was stretched from eight days to eight months because of propulsion problems with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.

A photograph that Nasa released in late September showed Williams and Wilmore making pizza on the space station. Williams’s face appeared sunken and thin. An article in The New York Post last week fuelled speculation, quoting an anonymous Nasa employee who claimed she had lost significant body mass.

The Post article said that Williams had been unable to consume enough calories to maintain her mass.

In an interview, Dr James D. Polk, Nasa's chief health and medical officer, said that was not true. “I’ve known Sunita 20 years, and I’ll tell you, Sunita looks the same to me,” he said. “She’s in incredible health right now.”

New York Times News Service