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

Welcome to the future

[Rick the Red]

This may be just what we need to make extended stays in space reasonable. I know I wouldn't want to move to the Moon if it meant 6 months physical therapy when I wanted to return to Earth.

On the other hand, we probably won't see these at Walgreen's (over-the-counter or prescription) until they can find it in athlete's pee.

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.

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.

Power Up!

[BrunoC]

This thing kinda reminds me of that Power Up pill of that Altered Beast game. That tiny little carachter becomes huge after 3 pills or so...

Re:Watch how fast the spam industry...

[Lord Sauron]

starts bulk-emailing spams that say something like: "Make muscles fast !"

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.