The “Break it Down” Blog

Volume 134, Issue 3 of Cell Magazine (from Science Driect) published an article titled: AMPK and PPAR? Agonists Are Exercise Mimetics.

I had no idea what that title meant, but thankfully Paige Waehner did over on About.com with her article “Excercise in a Pill“. It seems that this pill stimulates the same response in the body that long sessions of endurance exercise would allowing the person taking it to improve their endurance and ability to perform physical feats over time.

Too good to be true? It has to be…

We covered something like this about a year ago where scientists found that messing with certain proteins (myostatin) in mice resulted in massive passive muscle growth.

Those same scientists out of Johns Hopkins have found that in addition to blocking myostatin, if they cause the over-production of the protein follistatin the muscle growth in those same mice almost doubles again.

While these findings are certainly fascinating from a scientific point of view, most folks initial reaction (mine included) has been: “Hey cool, I never have to work out again and can look great”, which I don’t think is entirely true.

Something that Paige’s article touched on that many people don’t think about when they want to get in shape are all the ancillary benefits of exercise that aren’t addressed by simply dropping weight or getting huge muscles, things like:

• Psychological benefits: Both the endorphins for a generally better and more stabilized mood but also the self-satisfaction and confidence that comes from working out and achieving a goal. This may sound “fuzzy” or “floaty” but if you have ever known someone who had no ambition or accomplishments in their life, you’ll know why this is important.
• Passive physical benefits: Strong joints, denser bones, strong tendons, stronger organs and a more optimized physical response to intense exertion that your body learns over time (e.g. burning up glycogen stores faster for energy, sweating and stabilizing your body’s rhythm faster and recovering faster).
• Unknown benefits: You know they are there, but we just don’t know about them yet. Things like cell-wall density, cell resilience, red blood cell count, infection-fighting response time and strength, clear brain function as your body can better optimize sugars, etc. etc.

I’ve always been a big believer in “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. You can see it everywhere, every time a new miracle drug is announced or some miracle product, there is always some sort of catch.

I think messing with 100s of thousands of years of evolution (or “intelligent design” if your parents are cousins) with the short-sighted goal of having huge muscles while not considering the uncountable side-effects that either that or exercise have on your body is not a smart choice.

Even if this pill comes out at some point, I assure you… there will be side effects and it won’t replacement working out.