Losing weight is not that easy - you have to adjust your diet, give up all the delicious food, and exercise regularly.
But now imagine a pill that could do all of that for you.
Imagine an "exercise pill" that could burn fat without you having to move a single muscle.
Sounds to good to be true? Well Science is already in the progress of making it happen!
Now before you get too excited - results have only been tested in mice for the time being.
This week, a research team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California was able to trigger a gene pathway in mice, which is normally triggered through running.
This had the result that sedentary mice were improving their stamina and burning fat without actually moving much.
Mice with the drug intake were able to run on a treadmill for 270 minutes, compared to the 160 minutes that mice without the treatment could run.
Mice who were infused with the drugs for 8 weeks were putting on less weight, and it even kept their blood sugar levels in check, which means that the pill could also help with diabetes treatment.
"It's well known that people can improve their aerobic endurance through training. The question for us was: How does endurance work? And if we really understand the science, can we replace training with a drug?"-Ronald Evans, senior author and director of the Gene Expression Laboratory at Salk
The drug being tested is labeled GW501516 (GW, for short).
The researchers tested what exactly the drug changed inside the mice, and found out that nearly 1000 genes were being altered.
A lot of the genes that usually manage the burning and breakdown of fat were activated and their activity was sped up by the drug.
"Exercise activates PPARD, but we're showing that you can do the same thing without mechanical training. It means you can improve endurance to the equivalent level as someone in training, without all of the physical effort."-Weiwei Fan, researcher and 1st author of the paper
An especially interesting one of these genes is called PPARD: it's normally being activated in long-distance runners and it helps them not to put on weight and makes them very responsive to Insulin.
Now, the scientists were able to prove that the drug GW could replicate the same effects, as well as increasing stamina.
When analyzing the mice's muscles, the scientists found another interesting effect: the mice who used the drug didn't have more tissue that burns fat, and also didn't have additional mitochondria (creators of energy inside the cells).
This proves that the drug gave the mice the benefits of physical activity, without actually having to perform too much aerobic exercise.
Scientists hope that one day, this "exercise pill" could be used for people unable to exercise due to serious health conditions, age, or diseases, but still need to profit from the benefits of exercising.
“There are groups of people who for one reason or other cannot exercise, people with real problems, and you could potentially have a pill that gives them some of the benefits of exercise. A pill of this sort might allow them to a place where they can start to exercise for real.”-Ali Tavassoli, professor of chemical biology at Southampton University
Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
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