Exercise Pill for Couch Potatoes?

cravey writes "CNN is running a story about how scientists at Duke University have discovered ..."the chemical pathways that muscle cells use to build strength and endurance." which may lead to the development of an exercise pill."

Comments

Just what we need...

[Dimwit]

Yet another thing that just encourages people not to exercise, and just get fatter and lazier. I mean, they're not building any strength or endurance sitting on their asses popping pills!

Oh...wait...I guess they are...

Re:Just what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be another step in our specie's evolution from physical to intellectual labor.

As many people's jobs do not involve any physical work anymore, exercise becomes a deprecated necessity from the time we needed to be optimized for physical work. Now our bodies need to evolve, to function perfectly without needing exercise, and this may help.

So let me get this straight...

[Snowfox]

Scientists have just discovered steroids?

Skepticism

[4of12]

I have to wonder if artificial "push" chemistry is sufficiently workable compared to the conventional exercise-induced "pull" chemistry?

Biochemistry has loads of reactions and products going on in terms of everyday metabolism. It's hard to think that just flooding in a few key reactants is going to have exactly the same effect as real exercise in all possible ways.

There's gotta be a catch.

Better Living Through Chemistry

[Cade144]

Considering the history of diet pills (Fen Fen anyone?) I hope they test the long term effects of this drug before it goes public.
I can just see years from now, after I've been taking thousands of doses of this miracle drug to keep my gut from rolling over my belt, finding out that my hair has turned a deep shade of purple, my liver has dissolved completely, and no matter what I eat, everything tastes like pickles.

Re:Welcome to the future

[Linux_ho]

They still haven't found a solution for bone degradation in space, although exercise seems to help.

For the average couch potato popping these, expect to see problems with tendons that can't handle the strength of the muscles they are connected to.

Could be useful for space exploration, though.

[Binky The Oracle]

This kind of advance could be very helpful to deep space exploration or other long term, low gravity situations. Combine with some way to retard calcium loss and one more hurdle is gone. Additionally, as the article mentioned, this would be a great thing for bed-ridden patients who can't exercise, or people with some other ailment preventing muscle-building routines (bad joints, arthritis, etc.)

I'm definitely not against a technology (chemical, nano or otherwise) that would give me the benefits of physical exercise like better muscle to fat ratio, strength, and endurance without actually having to engage in repetitive physical activities that I find boring. There are only so many hours in a day, and I'd prefer not to spend them paying the local gym or lugging rocks around my yard.

We've developed plenty of technologies that allow us to more easily accomplish things we found tedious or difficult (hammers, cars and planes, forklifts, word processors, slashdot) so this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like any advance, it has potential for abuse or misuse, but it sounds pretty darn cool to me.