New Drug Mimics the Beneficial Effects of Exercise

Zothecula writes "A drug known as SR9009, which is currently under development at The Scripps Research Institute, increases the level of metabolic activity in skeletal muscles of mice. Treated mice become lean, develop larger muscles and can run much longer distances simply by taking SR9009, which mimics the effects of aerobic exercise. If similar effects can be obtained in people, the reversal of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and perhaps Type-II diabetes might be the very welcome result."

Comments

The alternative

[Major Ralph]

Or you know, people could just go outside for a walk.

Re:The alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

How well has that worked so far?

Re:The alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea for those of us that can't walk (7 year survivor of bone marrow cancer, taking 3 kinds of pain meds just to be able to walk the minimum distances required for work and living)...

Biking and swimming (only in heated pools) are my only kinds of exercise that I can do on a regular basis.

Re:The alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you know, people could just go outside for a walk.

I'd rather do a few hours of overtime every week ... so I can afford to buy pills and avoid all that WORK.

Re:The alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

How about those who can't? Muscle wasting is a major problem that complicates a variety of injuries and conditions, this could be a breakthrough for many people just wanting to live with more mobility and less pain.

But then I guess that doesn't occur to the blinkered "fuck you" generation.

Re:The alternative

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Note to people in the future reading this, with healthy sexy bodies in spite of eating 25,000 calories a day of bleu cheese wrapped in burger wrapped in breadding, deep fried and dipped in cream cheese sauce: this is what we have to put up with.

Memes as offboard quasi-DNA guiding behavior, guiding social pecking orders and reproduction (of DNA and memes). "Fucking fatass" is more about raising the speaker in his mind's eye as to social status vis-a-vis the ladies, by putting down as defective behaviours you in the future are no longer are concerned with. Similar to "fucking heathen" might be to us.

Most people don't realize their brain is little more than the meme equivalent of the cellular chemicals doing DNA's bidding. How lucky you are, not having to deal with this, and only your ant overlords.

Re:The alternative

[jc42]

I could be reading this wrong, but it looks like life expectancy is trending upwards since the 50's. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html

You could be reading it wrong. Note that it explicitly says "life expectancy at birth". There has been a lot of criticism of this sort of things from statistics-enabled researchers, who point out that almost all of the life-expectancy gains in the past century have been through elimination of most early-childhood deaths. Life expentancy at birth has increased, but the life expectancy of someone 30 or 60 years old hasn't actually changed much.

There has been a bit of publicity around related topics lately. Thus, there has been a lot of discussion of the apparent fact that the increase in mammograms has produced no measurable increase in lifetime, just an increase in medical bills for the testing (and the "treatment" of false positives ;-). Similar statistical problems have been reported for prostate-cancer screening, and for an assortment of other medical tests.

Another statistical trick used to make things look better than they are is the common practice of giving cancer survival rates in terms of survival 5 years after diagnosis. This means, for example, that if you were to come up with a new test that diagnoses a cancer 5 years earlier than any existing test, your test would result in a 100% "cure" rate even with no further treatment, and no change in the death statistics. I've heard a couple of interviews in which the interviewer points out this problem, and the interviewee just continues talking about the same "5-year survival" figures.

In general, it seems that if you're over 10 years old, modern medicine really hasn't done much in increase your (statistical) lifespan, though it is sometimes fairly good at extracting money for treatments that don't increase lifespan.

(Perhaps some of the treatments improve quality of life, but the statistics for that don't seem to be widely studied or reported. It might be interesting to be shown wrong in this regard, however. OTOH, there has been a bit of media coverage lately of the problems with "treatment" of false positives.)

(And a more general problem here is that the general public -- and the media -- is generally ignorant of even the most basic statistical concepts.)

Re:The alternative

[Macgrrl]

Recent studies have shown that shaming obese people leads to greater weight gain, not weight loss.

Speculation

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Biology being what it is, it's reasonable to think that the health benefits of exercise are a multi-factor phenomenon and that any one chemical will deliver fewer benefits than the real thing.

Then the odds are that the drug won't be bio-equivalent to the chemical signals released by real exercise and will have side effects as a result.

Re:Speculation

[mangu]

Or it could also be the exact opposite, perhaps it will give us the benefits of exercise without the downsides, such as the increased wear and tear in the body that exercise causes.

Needs a catchier name

[senorpoco]

XtremeShred, Fatbusterone, Buffadrine2000. Additionally they should only market it using annoying popup ads and late night television.

Side effects.

[wcrowe]

I will probably work great... except for the anal leakage.

Would probably be outlawed...

[RightSaidFred99]

Steroids, contrary to the public perception, can be used responsibly and with few health consequences, especially by men, to more easily lose fat and gain muscle.

It's not quite a free lunch, you can't sit on your couch and become Ronnie Coleman, but it will accelerate things.

Oops, sorry. Because we must protect the "integrity" of sports (and the money they bring in) we decided Steroids should be scheduled drugs

They'd probably do the same thing if something like this actually worked.

Re:Would probably be outlawed...

[localman57]

Yes, it's terrible to think that professional sports players should actually be rewarded for training and talent rather than drugs.

I'm so sick of people lecturing me about how bad steroids are, so why don't you SHUT UP! I've got half a mind to come over there and RIP YOUR HEAD OFF just for saying that! What? You gonna look at me like that? THAT'S IT!

Ethyl-3-(((4-chlorobenzyl)((5-nitrothiophen-2-yl)m

[MRe_nl]

I always thought exercise mimicked the beneficial effects of drugs.

Make it a beer additive

[rtgree01]

That way I can work on my 6-pack

Impacts all muscles

[crow]

A drug that tricks the body to respond as if it has been exercising will work on all muscles. Real exercise only works on the muscles that you use. Overuse of this drug would be expected to cause muscle growth where you don't want it. Bulk up those facial muscles.

Sure, in limited cases, this could be great. I'm thinking of cases where people can't exercise, using this in low doses to reduce the length of rehabilitation. Stuck in bed for a month or two due to a car accident? This is for you.

Of course, if it works, it will be abused. Need to get that extra edge for the Tour de France?

Re:Impacts all muscles

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like something perfect for extended periods of space flight.

Re:I call bullshit.

[invid]

Exercise doesn't make you healthy, it's your body's response to exercise that makes you healthy. Of course it can be simulated.

Might not work for healthy people

[erice]

From TFA:

Previous studies on mice lacking Rev-ErbA showed decreased skeletal muscles, metabolic rate, and running capacity. Such mice appeared fated by their genetics to live as couch potatoes.

When Burris' group administered SR9009 to these mice to activate the Rev-Erb protein, the results were remarkable. The metabolic rate in the skeletal muscles of the mice increased significantly. The treated mice were not allowed to exercise, but despite this they developed the ability to run about 50 percent further before being stopped by exhaustion.

So they created some broken mice and then treated them with a drug that reversed what they broke. And, what do you know? The effects were reversed too.

I'd like to see a followup on unmodified mice to see if they also benefit. If Rev-ErbA is already present and active at normal levels, the drug may not do anything.

Re:This can't end well

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Good for the welfare generation, maybe. Entitled little shits who want everything but don't want to put in the work."

Are boats just for lazy fucks who are too good to swim, and computers for people who lack the moral fiber for doing math in their heads?

Why is 'putting in the work', when an engineering solution (may, research is still preliminary) offer a labor saving method of solving the same problem? Is all of applied science and engineering immoral laziness, or is there some special virtue to sweating and grunting?

Re:Exercise is a luxury in US culture

[JazzLad]

Thank you, was reading the entire thread before doing so, but was about to make the very same comment. I am sick to death of successful people suggesting that all you have to do is exactly what they did to be successful.

It's not that I'm a failure, I am quite content with life at the moment, but I have had enough life experiences to know better than to think that friends of mine that struggle more than I do are just lazy or stupid. We all have our own burdens and situations and not everyone will be in a better position if they quit a horrible job.