The Potential Influence of Gut Microbes on the Progression of Sarcopenia

Sarcopenia is the name given to the characteristic age-related loss of muscle mass and strength that affects every older adult, and eventually significantly contributes to outright frailty. For the past decade or more US researchers have been agitating to have sarcopenia officially defined as a medical condition, with no success yet. Indeed, this is a poster child for one of the ways in which the stifling effect of heavy regulation emerges in practice. For so long as the FDA doesn't consider sarcopenia a disease, then it becomes that much more challenging to raise funding for research and development of potential therapies; large commercial ventures won't consider it seriously, and in turn that lack of interest spreads back into earlier stages of research funding, for-profit and non-profit. The whole field slows down because someone's arbitrary boxes are not being checked. There are many potential contributing causes to sarcopenia, all of which sound at least somewhat plausible and arrive accompanied by a fair amount of supporting evidence. Lower protein intake in older adults; defective processing of the amino acid leucine; sedentary behavior; chronic inflammation that disrupts the signaling and cell behavior needed for normal tissue maintenance; age-related decline in stem cell activity; infiltration of muscles by fat tissue; changes in mitochondrial dynamics that reduce energy output; blood vessel decline that reduces oxygenation; and loss of function neuromuscular ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs