Pharmacologists have developed a drug that creates the effect of training without physical exercise. As a result, fat is burned, muscles are trained, and their strength and endurance increase. And this is not a joke, scientific research confirms this effect.
It could be called the “Ilya Muromets effect.” Everyone knows that he did not train, but sat on the stove for 30 years and accumulated strength. And now this fantasy “becomes reality.”
Imitation sports
Understanding how genes work helped develop such a medicine. Specifically, we are talking about ERR – a gene associated with estrogen receptors. Contrary to its name, it plays a major role in muscle cells, improving mitochondrial function and activating cellular respiration. The same effects are caused by physical activity, during which the muscles actively work. But drugs that stimulate the ERR receptor do this without stress or work. You can sit, sleep, do something else, but the same biochemical changes that occur during a good workout will occur in your muscles. For this reason, drugs with a similar effect are called exercise mimetics, that is, imitators.
Several such drugs have recently been developed, but most of them have zero prospects for entering the market. But the drug code-named SLU-PP-332 is doing better. It claims to be effective and has “virtually no side effects.” True, it has so far only been tested on animals. This is evidenced by two articles published these days in two serious scientific journals – the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics) and ACS Chemical Biology (Journal of Chemical Biology of the American Chemical Society).
Faster, higher, stronger
“This compound essentially causes the same changes in skeletal muscle that we see during endurance training,” he says of the new drug. Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Florida Thomas Burris, he led both studies. “When you treat mice with the drug, you can see that their metabolism is directed towards using fatty acids, and this is very similar to what happens during fasting or exercise (in essence, this is burning fat – approx. aif. ru)”.
The drug also allows mice with normal weight to run 70% longer and 45% further than animals that did not receive this drug.
In a study of obese mice, the animals lost 12% more body weight over a month than the control group. However, they were not forced to engage in intense physical activity, and they ate as usual without any restrictions. “They just live, but they spend more energy,” Burris comments.
It is stated that the drug may be useful in the treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart failure and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass in older people – aif.ru). It looks as if this is not just a medicine, but “the dream of millions of patients.” However, it is not there yet, and it is unlikely that less than 5 years will pass before it goes on sale.
Source: aif.ru
