Scientists Are Working on a Drug to Mimic Exercise

Scientist Investigating If Pill Could Compensate Effect of Workout

Scientists from the University of Sydney have been researching on what exercises could do to the body while investigating if pill could compensate the effect of a workout and one study looks at how the physical activity tends to affect the molecules in the muscles.Another has checked on chemicals which could be utilised in an exercise pill and how it could compare with regular gym session.

The concept is being cultivated for medical commitments to aid people who would be unable to exercise. If the pill tends to be a reality, it would probably take at least another 10 years. New research published in the journal – Cell Metabolism has reported that around 1,000 molecular changes tend to take place in our muscles when the workout is carried out.

These changes have been recognised and scientists have been successful in having an exercise – blueprint. They would soon be capable of using this blueprint which would provide details of the molecular reactions to exercise and single out the main changes and begin duplicating them with the assistance of the drug. This indicates that we would soon be getting all the benefits of exercise without the need of workout.

Exercise Most Powerful Therapy for Several Diseases

The head of the research group that commenced the study, Professor David James explained that exercise is the most powerful therapy for several human diseases inclusive of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease as well as neurological disorders.

But for several people, exercise does not seem to be a feasible option of treatment. Researchers from the University of Sydney have worked along with the researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in creating the blueprint. They have collected all the data by analysing human skeletal muscle biopsies from untrained, healthy males after a ten minute of exercising and used the technique known as mass spectrometry in order to study protein phosphorylation.

It was then that they observed that after exercising, more than 1,000 changes had taken place at a molecular level. Until now, there were very few changes which had been linked with exercises. Research co-author, Dr Nolan Hoffman had explained that while scientists had long suspected that exercises tends to cause complicated series of changes to human muscles, this was the first time that they were capable of mapping precisely what happens.

Recent Study a Step in the Right Direction

He added that this was a main breakthrough since it enables scientist to utilise this information in designing a drug which imitates the true beneficial changes related to exercises. Creating the drug would be simple and as per Hoffman, it would take at least a decade, since any kind of medication would be needed to target multiple molecules simultaneously.

But the recent study has certainly been a step in the right direction. Professor James stated that the data clearly indicate the complexity of the response and it is not one thing though rather the drug would have to aim multiple things and that their research has made provision of a roadmap to figure it out. In the meanwhile, a separate study in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences studied the possibility of exercise pills and compared these with the effect of regular exercise.

Ismail Laher, one of the authors informed The Washington Post, that he needed to be clear that there is no way to replace routine exercise with an exercise pill. He stated that exercise needs the heart rate to go up, blood to flow faster and one cannot do that with an exercise pill, but in certain groups, it is the next best thing.