AICAR the answer to your dreams ?

[Luffers]

New drug is like an "exercise in a pill"

In tests mice ran 44% longer after taking it.

http://www.latimes.com/features/heal...,4249687.story

[suj]

*searches for a supplier for when cutting* lol

[CosmicFish]

I only skimmed the first page of the article (it's late and I need my bed!) but this bit caught my eye:

"The drug appeared to change the physical composition of muscle, essentially transforming the tissue from sugar-burning fast-twitch fibers to fat-burning slow-twitch ones"

Possibly good (if true) for marathon runners, but surely this is bad for bodybuilders?

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Yes, it is only meant to increase endurance. However, the main interest is its potential use in combating obesity. If you have more fat-burning slow twitch fibres you will burn more body fat. Obese people tend to have more fast twitch fibres (or fewer slow twitch fibres) than lean people. That's probably why the myth about muscle turning to fat if you stop training came about. If you actively train to increase fast twitch fibres over slow twitch you are limiting the degree to which they can burn off fat. So if you reduce your physical activity while continuing to eat a high calorie/carb (bodybuilding-style) diet you are more apt to pile on the flab while the largely fast twitch fibre muscles atrophy!

[daffy]

The article states that with no exercise, the supplement had no effect. The type of exercise the mice did was endurance based, and there was an increase in slow twitch fibres, but who knows what the effect would be when on a strength program? It might do nothing, but I'd be interested in hearing about human trials.

[CosmicFish]

Quote

Yes, it is only meant to increase endurance. However, the main interest is its potential use in combating obesity. If you have more fat-burning slow twitch fibres you will burn more body fat. Obese people tend to have more fast twitch fibres (or fewer slow twitch fibres) than lean people. That's probably why the myth about muscle turning to fat if you stop training came about. If you actively train to increase fast twitch fibres over slow twitch you are limiting the degree to which they can burn off fat. So if you reduce your physical activity while continuing to eat a high calorie/carb (bodybuilding-style) diet you are more apt to pile on the flab while the largely fast twitch fibre muscles atrophy!

Hmmm, so basically it's exercise in a pill form, specifically for the lazy obese. Where have I heard that before?

(I'm not criticising you there Nu, just venting my cynicism )

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Well, it does open a very interesting can of worms! As Daffy pointed out, if the mice didn't exercise (having been given the supplement) then there was no benefit, so maybe it won't be a miracle 'exercise in a pill' for the lazily obese.

But the other thing it opens up for discussion is whether the lack of slow twitch (fat burning) muscle fibres in the obese is the cause or the consequence of their obesity?

One could argue that, logically, the sacrifice of slow twitch muscle fibres in favour of fast twitch muscle fibres is the cause of obesity since the fat burning potential of muscles (especially at rest) would be significantly reduced.

It is also interesting to note that fast twitch muscle fibres are inherently more insulin resistant than slow twitch muscle fibres, so we have a possible cause of both increasing obesity and insulin resistance in people with fewer slow twitch fibres and more fast twitch fibres. If muscles that are made up of more fast twitch than slow twitch muscle fibres are more resistant to insulin - and presumably glucose uptake - that would leave the adipocytes as the only cells that could still respond to insulin and take up excess blood glucose and turn it into fat.

So the question becomes: outside of resistance exercise, what would cause people's slow twitch/fast twitch muscle fibre ratio to shift?

[Donnyhatter]

Quote

Well, it does open a very interesting can of worms! As Daffy pointed out, if the mice didn't exercise (having been given the supplement) then there was no benefit, so maybe it won't be a miracle 'exercise in a pill' for the lazily obese.

The way I read it there was no benefit in the initial trials with a different compound- after those they switched to ALCAR and there WAS then benefit without exercise.
Though I should admit i'm just on a tea break and the brain is a bit scrambled!

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Yes, it is confusing because they are actually talking about two different agents: one, a drug developed by GlaxoSmithKline called GW1516, only worked if the mice were exercised. The second mention is of ALCAR, which didn't seem to require the mice to exercise to show improvements. It gets jumbled because the references to these two instances cross over the page! It is also not clear if this was a combination of the drug and ALCAR or ALCAR alone that was used in the second experiment - or if the mice were still the genetically altered mice!

However, it seems a little 'too good to be true' to me. ALCAR has been around for a while as a sports supplement - I'm sure someone would have noticed this little miracle by now! And mice are not men!

I wonder if the study was funded by GlaxoSmithKline (who need another market for their failed HDL-raising drug!) or manufacturers of ALCAR?!

[Luffers]

AICAR Nu, not ALCAR that MP sell.