New Drugs Mimic Exercise

Comments

• 	Where's the rest of the story? ggeorge on 08/01/2008 at 8:23 AM
  Posts: 4 Avg Rating:	Okay.   So how is this any different than caffeine or any other stimulant?   Don't they also "give you energy" to do more than you otherwise would? Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • 	Re: Where's the rest of the story? Shoreliner11 on 08/01/2008 at 1:12 PM
    Posts: 4 Avg Rating:	The difference is that caffeine supplies you with energy, though what they're talking about in this article actually changes the muscle fibers itself after a workout. So you have more endurance while running and more muscle fibers after which are responsible for endurance. Rate this comment: (Reply)

  • Re: Where's the rest of the story? polyparadigm on 08/04/2008 at 5:38 PM

    Posts: 6 Avg Rating:

    Caffeine uses machinery that was set up to handle adrenaline; your body responds to it (and most stimulants) as it would to fear or excitement, and much of its effect on your muscles is cardiovascular. These new drugs are targeted (as the article mentions) at machinery that handles post-exercise hormones.  As Shoreliner11 mentions, it signals your muscles to alter their cellular structure.  I imagine it will feel a lot different (probably not psychotropic at all, unlike caffeine) and take a lot longer to kick in and to wear off. Rate this comment: (Reply)

• Effect on athletes and sports tkruke on 08/16/2008 at 5:44 AM

  Posts: 1

  I'm watching the Olympic Games in Beijing and can't help wonder when drug development will put a stop to all the fun. The article points out that top endurance athletes have 80-90 percent slow-twitch muscle fibers and discusses if a working drug like the PPAR activator would have any effect at all. At the level of top athletes where the difference between winning and loosing is so small I suspect that even a minute positive effect will make a big difference. I also suspect that any drug that can give positive effects with less training will help reduce the risk of injury and diseases. Let's hope anti doping can keep up. In the long run however, with more and more medical and drug development aimed at improving human health and performance, I wonder if we could see another effect: Even if anti doping work is able to keep up with drug development there still is the issue of normal people outperforming top athletes and how this will affect public interest for sports. How fun is it when your next door neighbor runs better than the Olympic champion? Rate this comment: (Reply)