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Super Strength Substance Approaching Human Trials
kkleiner writes "You may remember Liam Hoekstra, the baby apparently born without the myostatin gene, and consequently sporting 40% more skeletal muscle than his peers. Using gene therapy, NCH scientists have been able to get follistatin (a myostatin blocker) to promote phenomenal muscle growth in macaque monkeys. NCH is now working with the FDA to perform the preliminary steps necessary for a human clinical trial. Is this the prelude to a super-strength gene therapy for all of us?"
It could cure obesity: more muscles increases your resting metabolic rate. Just increase muscle mass to the point where your digestive tract is overwhelmed, and you start burning fat, no matter what you eat. Kind of like the movie "thinner", but this one would be called "muscular". That brings up interesting questions about what happens when your musculo-skeletal system and your nervous system start fighting for calories. The stereotypical big dumb guy? And isn't this gene therapy, where one shot changes your DNA for life? Culturally, this will hit the fitness industry like a bombshell. Billions are spent annually on looking "ripped". Here's the real deal. Pretty soon, you won't get laid without it.
Seems like there is probably a reason we have myostatin and if you disable it, other health problems may result. We're just don't know what they are yet.
Further, it seems like the people most interested in taking this drug would be bodybuilders who already have a low body fat percentage...they have little fat to burn and now this reduces the ability to metabolize their muscle tissue. I could foresee that a small medical problem involving the digestive tract could turn into a complete crisis if they cannot get the energy they need to fight an infection from their own tissues when they need it most.
And astronauts: the muscular atrophy they experience at zero gee is quite profound, and is a real risk to extended space station or possible Mars missions.
I'm sure you're right, but I'll bet the main commercial application will be found in super-meaty chickens and cows.
The military has been working on what I'd call troop supplement vehicles. Basically, they are small cart vehicles able to carry a couple thousand pounds. They can follow a soldier around, or manually controlled to perform delivery tasks during a fire fight. Beats a 40% increase in strength by far.
For endurance sports, I suspect your performance is limited by your bodies ability to remove lactic acid from your system, in which case having 40% more muscle mass wouldn't help -- there would be 40% more lactic acid. For pure strength sports such as weightlifting this would be an advantage -- up until your muscles become strong enough to break your own bones or tear your own tendons. For body builders, using this would be a no-brainer. I've always advocated that, like snowmobile racing, all sports should have "unmodified" classes where enhancements are banned and "supermodified" classes where anything goes. Get caught doping, you (and your records) just get automatically moved into the supermod class.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Open question: What about the ethical concerns with military and law enforcement use of the drug, especially if the use is encouraged or even mandated?
Law enforcement already have a problem with 'roids. Even if the new drug doesn't directly affect moods, it could cause harmful or fatal overestimation of strength and ability.