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'Exercise-In-A-Pill' Boosts Athletic Endurance By 70 Percent, Study Finds (sciencedaily.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Daily: Salk Institute scientists, building on earlier work that identified a gene pathway triggered by running, have discovered how to fully activate that pathway in sedentary mice with a chemical compound, mimicking the beneficial effects of exercise, including increased fat burning and stamina. The study, which appears in Cell Metabolism on May 2, 2017, not only deepens our understanding of aerobic endurance, but also offers people with heart conditions, pulmonary disease, type 2 diabetes or other health limitations the hope of achieving those benefits pharmacologically. Previous work by the Evans lab into a gene called PPAR delta (PPARD) offered intriguing clues: mice genetically engineered to have permanently activated PPARD became long-distance runners who were resistant to weight gain and highly responsive to insulin -- all qualities associated with physical fitness. The team found that a chemical compound called GW1516 (GW) similarly activated PPARD, replicating the weight control and insulin responsiveness in normal mice that had been seen in the engineered ones. However, GW did not affect endurance (how long the mice could run) unless coupled with daily exercise, which defeated the purpose of using it to replace exercise. In the current study, the Salk team gave normal mice a higher dose of GW, for a longer period of time (8 weeks instead of 4). Both the mice that received the compound and mice that did not were typically sedentary, but all were subjected to treadmill tests to see how long they could run until exhausted. Mice in the control group could run about 160 minutes before exhaustion. Mice on the drug, however, could run about 270 minutes -- about 70 percent longer. For both groups, exhaustion set in when blood sugar (glucose) dropped to around 70 mg/dl, suggesting that low glucose levels (hypoglycemia) are responsible for fatigue.
I'm wondering why that genetic pathway isn't active for all mice, but suspect it's because they don't live as long during a famine. I also wonder why mice evolved to be able to run for 160 minutes straight, considering they tend to move in bursts, and hide.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Let me wikipedia that for you... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW501516
"GW501516 (also known as GW-501,516, GW1516, GSK-516 and on the black market as Endurobol[1]) is a PPAR receptor agonist that was invented in a collaboration between Ligand Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline in the 1990s, was entered into clinical development as a drug candidate for metabolic diseases and cardiovascular diseases, and was abandoned in 2007 because animal testing showed that the drug caused cancer to develop rapidly in several organs.
In 2007 research was published showing that high doses of GW501516 given to mice dramatically improved their physical performance; the work was widely discussed in popular media, and led to a black market for the drug candidate and to its abuse by athletes as a doping agent. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) developed a test for GW501516 and other related chemicals and added them to the prohibited list in 2009; it has issued additional warnings to athletes that GW501516 is not safe"
It shouldn't be a surprise that doping improves performance and is bad for you...
So, I now can run longer and die sooner?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
GW501516 (also known as GW-501,516, GW1516, GSK-516 and on the black market as Endurobol[1]) is a PPARÎ receptor agonist that was invented in a collaboration between Ligand Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline in the 1990s, was entered into clinical development as a drug candidate for metabolic diseases and cardiovascular diseases, and was abandoned in 2007 because animal testing showed that the drug caused cancer to develop rapidly in several organs.
In 2007 research was published showing that high doses of GW501516 given to mice dramatically improved their physical performance; the work was widely discussed in popular media, and led to a black market for the drug candidate and to its abuse by athletes as a doping agent. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) developed a test for GW501516 and other related chemicals and added them to the prohibited list in 2009; it has issued additional warnings to athletes that GW501516 is not safe.
Yes, your reading comprehension shows you'd be a perfect fit for slashdot editing. Or maybe you got tired and couldn't finish reading the summary. I hear there's a pill for that.
Next study would be how to activate genes for reading endurance. Some people just can't go the distance.
So instead of being able to run 30 metres before collapsing, I'll be able to run around 50?
Now don't you feel good about yourself? You swore at a total stranger over a topic you don't really care much about.
22K per day? Yeah, sure. You and the other elephants in the enclosure, right? The most the human gut can absorb per day is roughly 6K to 8K which is why a lot of people who do extreme expeditions still lose weight despite eating high calorie food almost non stop.
... they didn't evolve it as mice, it was already there when they evolved INTO mice and it presumably doesn't reduce their survivability (and even may help on rare occasions) so natural selection hasn't removed it.
If natural selection could have found a way of dramatically increasing our stamina and/or strength without reducing our lifespan or causing other issues that reduce our breeding ability then it would have almost certainly been included in our gene pool. The fact that after millions of years it hasn't tells you a lot.
Eg: steroids will make you far stronger for a given amount of exercise compared to not taking them, but look at the huge list of (sometimes fatal) side effects. Ditto almost all other performance & strength enhancing drugs.
If natural selection could have found a way of dramatically increasing our stamina and/or strength without reducing our lifespan or causing other issues that reduce our breeding ability
You don't even have to look for really nasty side effects. Most likely the steady state energy consumption of the body goes up when fitness is enhanced. Given a limited food supply, there's an optimum point on the fitness/energy curve. I assume the natural mice are already close to that optimum. When the environment changes, the optimum may shift, and the metabolism can quickly adapt, because the pathways are already there.
For the majority of our time on earth we have been subject to limited food supplies. People in first world countries are now at a point where they are able to regularly eat more than their bodies naturally burn, usually unintentionally. If we could teach our bodies this, we would be able to make better use of the available energy. Now, whether this drug is a safe way to do that is an entirely different issue.
He should take one of those pills.
The most the human gut can absorb per day is roughly 6K to 8K
This might depend on conditioning. I used to know people into extreme cycling events (Tour de France, etc.) and they would target about 12K, including an entire box of donuts before breakfast. But that's after months of training.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In the late 80s and early 90s I consumed 8000 calories a day and swam 40km a day during the summers. It was not easy as in addition to swimming 8 hours a day I also had a job and it takes time to eat that much. I'm pretty sure that if I had spent less time working and more time eating, I could have processed more food. It is a good thing I was the boss, because when I was training like this I was pretty much a food guzzling zombie slacker when not in the pool.
So what you're saying is the OP is full of shit? <rimshot />
I have quit my IT work to become caregiver to my elderly Mom and Dad.
In the process, I have energized my mind (and theirs) by learning a lot about nootropics (and other) supplements.
When I tested Acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR) on myself, I found it gave me a great energy boost etc, etc.
Mom and Dad can't exercise and both have type 2 diabetes (one does insulin injections and the other does Metformin/Glipiside pills).
When started giving ALCAR to them, I found that after a few days their blood sugar levels were repeatedly going too low.
Then I a hunch, I googled ALCAR and insulin resistance. Here is one of the more scientific articles:
"Ameliorating hypertension and insulin resistance in subjects at increased cardiovascular risk: effects of acetyl-L-carnitine therapy."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
My mom, who could never keep her sugar under control, just had her A1C tested.
Her doctor and I were stunned that it came in at 6.1 (excellent for a diabetic).
Of course ALCAR is a natural supplement that cannot be patented and is very cheap.
No drug company will invest in an FDA trial to test its safety and efficacy for the treatment of diabetes.
It will take a long time for American doctors to learn about it, since most of their education comes from drug company reps.
So -- if you have type 2 diabetes -- I'd suggest you study it, buy it, try it -- and spread the word !
"Chasing women". Those words don't mean what you apparently think they mean.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Mice reach sexual maturity at six weeks, have a lifespan of about a year over which they will produce as many as a hundred offspring. This makes them almost ideally suited for either artificial breeding or rapid population adaption by natural selection.
I'll bet if you tracked a wild mouse population, after a couple of successive lean years the average mouse would be measurably more metabolically thrifty. After a few good years the average mouse would be more aggressive in its use of energy. But the tail ends of the distribution would be preserved either way, hedging the population's metabolic bet.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
For the past several thousand years, food supply has been plentiful for most established civilizations, most of the time. Eating more food than what our bodies naturally burn isn't the problem. Our bodies have a complex system of hormones which regulate our appetite, so for the vast majority of people, overeating shouldn't be an issue. However, sugar, flour, and other fast-energy carbohydrates are prevalent in modern western diets, resulting in an obesity epidemic. These carbohydrates are resulting in increased insulin resistance in a large segment of the population, and insulin resistance leads to obesity. There are lots of different factors at play in the current obesity epidemic, but plentiful food isn't one of them. Food was plentiful in the 19th century, and obesity wasn't an epidemic then. There have been several studies which indicate formula feeding babies may be a factor. The war on dietary fat, led by nutrition scientists, caused a huge increase of carbohydrates in our diet. Dietary fat does not trigger an insulin response, whereas carbohydrates do. And insulin is the hormone that triggers fat cells to start storing energy. Cheap grain, finely processed flours, added sugars, and mass production have adversely affected our diet and messed up our body's ability to regulate our weight.
"This is more cultural than biological."
I disagree. Kids need emotion support whether it comes from a parent or a guardian. Those who don't grow up with it due to the parent(s) being absent or just useless more often than not go badly off the rails or look for substitutes in gang culture with the same result.
Also its not just mental maturity. Physically a young child wouldn't survive for long in the wild. It would either be eaten, poison itself or die of starvation.
All of those studies concern L-Carnitine.
The acetylated form, ALCAR, seems to have significant differences, for one, it crosses the blood-brain barrier.
Since there is such a significant difference in the way vegetarians and meat-eaters repond to L-Carnitine, I'd have to think there is also difference
between L-Carnitine and Acetyl-l-Carnitine.
Here is a well-written criticism (from a slightly dubious source):
https://jonbarron.org/heart-he...
As far a dietary supplements in general, I agree that the are not usually appropriate for young, healthy people.
But, when humans start to live longer than their "natural" age, or they've been poisoned by the modern enviroment,
I think some supplement help is perfectly normal and beneficial.
I've had remarkable success using various nootropics to restore the mental functioning of both my Mom and my Dad.
It is also very interesting that many of the substances that I have the most success with are difficult to obtain in the US,
yet they are inexpensive over-the-counter drugs in most of the rest of the world.
These include:
- Piracetam (brand name Nootropil is Europe)
- Centophenoxine (brand name Lucidril in Europe)
- Alpha-GPC (an official Alzheimer's treatment in the Netherlands)
The American FDA was originally supposed to protect the people from dangerous drugs, but there is NOTHING significantly dangerous about those three. (and they are all very effective). Today, the FDA seems to be run by drug companies who's only interest is promoting patented drugs for huge profits.