It’s the answer to many a couch potato’s prayer. Researchers have discovered a chemical compound that they say will produce the benefits of an aerobic workout – but without the aerobic workout.
Exercise in a Pill?
They experimented with the chemical compound called AICAR on mice that did not exercise. AICAR allowed the mice to run 44% further on a treadmill than the mice that didn’t receive the drug.
The big question is how does it work? Apparently it changes the physical composition of muscle – similar to what happens to the muscles of athletes through training.
“You’re getting the benefits of exercise without having to do any work,” said David Mangelsdorf, a pharmacologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not connected with the research.
There are many other questions: Does it work for people who are already physically fit? Is it safe? How is research done with mice transferred and adapted to humans? Those answers are yet to come, but the pill has been getting a lot of notice already.
Nonetheless, lead researcher Ronald Evans, a molecular physiologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, said he has already been contacted by dozens of athletes and overweight people who have heard about his research from previous lectures.
“Anything that could provide half of a quarter of one percent is attractive,” said Dr. Don Catlin, a professor emeritus of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA and a top anti-doping expert. “The athlete who can find a way to get an edge is one up on his competitors.”
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