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Everyone knows that exercise improves health, and ongoing research continues to uncover increasingly detailed information on its benefits for metabolism, circulation, and improved functioning of organs such as the heart, brain, and liver. With this knowledge in hand, scientists may be better equipped to develop "exercise pills" that could mimic at least some of the beneficial effects of physical exercise on the body. But a review of current development efforts, publishing October 2 in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, ponders whether such pills will achieve their potential therapeutic impact, at least in the near future.
"We have recognized the need for exercise pills for some time, and this is an achievable goal based on our improved understanding of the molecular targets of physical exercise," says coauthor Ismail Laher, of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Several laboratories are developing exercise pills, which at this early stage are being tested in animals to primarily target skeletal muscle performance and improve strength and energy use—essentially producing stronger and faster muscles. But of course the benefits of exercise are far greater than its effects on only muscles.
Couch potatoes would rejoice, of course, but exercise pills could also benefit the bed-ridden or astronauts who spend extended periods in microgravity.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 04 2015, @08:28PM
> p.s. if population growth and consumption continues we are heading towards scarcity.
That's the malthusian fallacy. It was false when Malthus proposed it because those are only two of the three components and even those two aren't a given.
(1) Population levels out, even declines in every country that achieves western levels of wealth.
(2) Malthus didn't account for increases in efficiency - all the population and consumption growth was fed by improvements in farming.
Fundamentally it comes down to energy - with enough energy we can operate hydroponic warehouses on a scale large enough to feed hundreds of billions of people and fit them all in areas of land that are essentially unpopulated today. Even something as inefficient as solar would require less than 1% of the earth's surface to power the entire planet's energy requirements. Get cheap fusion working, or even just cheap clean fission, and we will be fine.