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DailyDirt: Replacing Exercise With A Pill

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Oct 2nd 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Some people really enjoy exercising. Some people really don't. And some people have physical limitations that restrict the amount or kinds of exercise they can do. If there were a pill that could provide some of the benefits of exercising, plenty of folks would take it. Not surprisingly, a lot of research is looking at how exercise affects the body -- and some projects might lead to a pharmaceutical solution for couch potatoes. Here are just a few examples.

Drug candidate SR9009 sounds like a pill from The Jetsons that helps you lose weight and build muscle -- without exercising. Mice treated with this drug showed increased metabolic activity in skeletal muscle and improved athletic endurance for running. [url]
Different colonies of intestinal bacteria may spur obesity or prevent it. Studies of lab rodent fecal transplants suggest that some kinds of bacteria can help keep fat mice lean when eating a low-fat, high-fiber diet. [url]
Regular exercise may help boost autophagy processes in the body that clear out surplus proteins and other cellular detritus -- potentially leading to some anti-aging benefits. Researchers are just beginning to learn more about autophagy mechanisms (and maybe someday we'll get the benefits without the exercise). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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Filed Under: anti-aging, autophagy, bacteria, drugs, exercise, health, medicine, pharmaceuticals, sr9009

6 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

“

You'd actually have to swallow the pill? That sounds like alot of work.

—Anonymous Coward

”

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2013 @ 8:13pm

If big pharma makes a pill for exercise, no one will be able to exercise because it'll infringe on their patents.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2013 @ 12:12am

Re:
Yes and Big Pharma will also claim they spent lots of money developing this new product when of course it can be clearly seen that all of the initial and ground-breaking work was publicly funded by most of the countries in the western world.
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Robert, 3 Oct 2013 @ 12:21am

The Gluttony Pill
The gluttony pill. Every five trips to Mcdonald's et al and receive one free?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2013 @ 1:28am

You'd actually have to swallow the pill? That sounds like alot of work.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jason @ IS, 16 Oct 2013 @ 6:43pm

Just Crazy...
What will we think of next? Something to shower for us or put our clothes on in the morning? Maybe raise our children for us? Crazy. It just takes a little hard work and some exercise to get yourself in great shape!
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Jill Dealdh (profile), 15 Jan 2014 @ 10:15pm

Just Thinking...
I think this will make more people lazy. Exercise is always good for our body and having this thing makes our body more dependent at such...not good enough!
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