Fit in old age: there will soon be a drug that acts as a Sport?

Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have observed that the ability for the muscle repair in older mice, which were regularly in the night rounds in the impeller, improved. The regular exercise had the effect of a makeover on the muscle stem cells of animals. Special drugs could, in future, use the same mechanism.

Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have observed that the ability for the muscle repair in older mice, which were regularly in the night rounds in the impeller, improved. The regular exercise had the effect of a makeover on the muscle stem cells of animals. Special drugs could, in future, use the same mechanism. Sport is known to be age-related problems. This seems to work also in the case of muscle stem cells, which wait along the muscle fibers in a state of rest, until the damage need to be repaired: In the case of aged and inactive mice, they were less for the Regeneration of muscle damage in the situation than in animals of the same age, who were regularly in a wheel is active. Such a training advantage was not observed in younger animals.

"The effect in the old animals is very deutlich", the neurologist Prof. Dr. Thomas Rando of Stanford said. "We have found that regular movement, the youthfulness of the tissue repair as well as restore. The muscle stem cells look and behave like those of much younger animals."

The researchers have also identified the mechanism that is involved in the turning Back of the clock. They believe that drugs that alter this signaling pathway could be similar to the movement work. This assumption, they derive from the observation that a Transmission of blood of the active old mice on inactive animals increased their ability to muscle repair also. "If we could develop a drug that mimics this effect, we could possibly come in Use, to müssen&quot without months of sports;, Rando said.

In their experiments, the researchers compared 20-month-old mice, which corresponds to a human age of 60 to 70 years, with a three-to-four-month-old mice, the equivalent in humans of 20 to 30 years. A part of the mice had put a wheel in the cage, whereupon the young mice at night an average of ten and older mice, approximately five kilometres from a private drive. For comparison, two groups were used of old and young mice, which had fixed wheels in the cage.

ZOU