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Mice Able to Exercise for Almost Twice as Long after Taking 'Exercise Pill'

posted by martyb on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the and-then-they-die? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Researches have made another step along the path to an 'exercise pill'. The latest discovery is a compound which 'switches' muscles into metabolizing fats instead of sugars without the usual aerobic training. This helps delay "hitting the wall", significantly. In a mouse study sedentary mice increased the amount of time spent on endurance exercise from 160 minutes to 270, without additional aerobic training. It is hypothesized the drug 'encourages' muscles to use fats for energy even when sugars are available. This is thought to mimic one of the adaptions brought on by aerobic exercise training. The results were published in the journal of Cell Metabolism PPARδ Promotes Running Endurance by Preserving Glucose. For those without an organic chemistry background, CBC Radio's science program has an interview accompanying article with the study author.

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  • (Score: 4, Touché) by caffeine on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:54AM (4 children)

    by caffeine (249) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:54AM (#506794)

    I wonder how long before professional cyclists start testing this for us?

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @09:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @09:04AM (#506799)

    They already are. They found this compound by refining professional cyclists'blood

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:57AM (2 children)

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:57AM (#506826)

    The real question is, how long before this becomes commercially available? It saddens me that the "Drugs are Bad" mantra has prevented us from getting to Iain M Banks levels of drugs and biochemistry. If there wasn't such a taboo on performance enhancing drugs, we could have a water supplement that turned us all into superhumans by now.

    • (Score: 2) by caffeine on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:48AM

      by caffeine (249) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:48AM (#506834)

      Funny you should mention Banks, I'm just rereading Consider Phlebas as the moment. One of the few authors I'll happily reread.

    • (Score: 2) by bd on Tuesday May 09 2017, @03:23PM

      by bd (2773) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @03:23PM (#506937)

      Citing wikipedia, the drug is available on the black market under the name "endurobol", if you are interested. Street price is reported to be 1000$ per 10 mg. See your local body-building place, I guess.

      One slight drawback of the drug is that it was found to be _quite_ carcinogenic, stopping commercial development. Of course it was still used for doping. Who cares wether you'll live to 40.

      I guess that makes it more of a William Gibson level of drugs and biochemistry.

      Nevermind, a non-carcinogenic PPARδ-agonist would actually be a very profitable drug, as it can be used to emulate the physical exercise part of succesful obesity treatment.