A Popular Science View of Exercise Mimetic Research

This article surveys some of the research groups working on exercise mimetic drugs, potential ways to artificially induce some of the beneficial metabolic reaction to exercise. This proceeds in much the same way as the past few decades of calorie restriction research that also aims for pharmaceutical methods of inducing metabolic change, which is to say that it is slow going, very expensive, there are ever a slate of potential candidate drugs, but none result in practical outcomes for clinical medicine. The main output is increased knowledge of narrow slices of the operation of metabolism, rather than drug candidates on their way to the clinic. The operation of metabolism is fantastically complex and still poorly understood at the detailed level needed to adjust it safely and successfully. Even though both calorie restriction and exercise are highly reliable ways to beneficially adjust the operation of metabolism, that doesn't mean it is easy to reverse engineer the relevant mechanisms and points of intervention. Tinkering with metabolism has so far proven to be an expensive, low-yield line of research. That will change at some point in the future, but one could have said that at any time since the turn of the century, and been wrong about significant progress being imminent. In a teak-lined office overlooking the ocean, the biologist Ron Evans introduced me to two specimens: Couch Potato Mouse and Lance Armstrong Mouse. Couch Potato Mouse had been raised to s...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs