Critic Urges Caution Over Exercise Pill Study
It could be a matter of dilution of the message as the scientific data was reinterpreted and broadcast by journalists everywhere recently when the prestigious Salk Institute for Biological Studies published, in the journal, Cell, a paper describing a drug under laboratory investigation that mimics some of the body’s responses to regular exercise. The study has frequently been described as the “exercise pill” study.
Frank Booth, however, says the effect of the drug affects only a small portion of the body’s very complex physiological responses to regular exercise. Booth, an expert on the science of inactivity at the University of Missouri, said it is inadvisable to consider the drug a realistic replacement for regular exercise. The drug does increase the ability to endure strenuous exercise without maintaining a daily training regimen but endurance is only one of the many benefits of routine exercise.
Only endurance level was tested in the Salk study but Booth says there are at least 26 other benefits of exercise that were not included in the Salk study, including:
- Decreased heart rate during times of rest
- The ability of the heart to pump more blood with each stroke during exercise
- Optimum performance of the heart during exercise
- Arteries that are less likely to stiffen
- Lowered blood pressure
- Improved aerobic function
The implications of someday relying on a pill to produce the benefits of exercise without actually working out physically could be far-reaching but, for the moment, Booth urges people to become aware of the many health-enhancing benefits of a lifetime of adequate physical activity.
Regular exercise dramatically decreases the risk of developing these very common chronic illnesses:
- Reduced by 60% - stroke
- By 59% - osteoporosis
- By 50% - type 2 diabetes
- By 45% - coronary artery disease
- By 41% - colon cancer
- By 30% - hypertension (high blood pressure)
- By 30% - breast cancer
Booth concedes the drug used in the Salk study did perform as reported but suggests media reports might have blown the actual documented benefits of the drug out of proportion.
Source: University of Missouri - Columbia
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Everybody seems to be having a big laugh at the expense of those of us who can’t exercise. ( because of ailments such as congestive heart failure, COPD, lumbar stenosis, etc…) Yes, I have all three. This “pill” would really benefit me as far as muscle tone, flexibility, etc… But I guess it’s much more important that you people have a good laugh at my expense as well as others who are in the same boat as me.
@John Field: I’m really sorry to hear that you have so many ailments, but you are gravely mistaken to believe that a pill would be able to replace the regular exercise. I can bet (and I don’t like regular betting, even less when it comes to science and health issues) that in a few years they would release information regarding how many and what kind of problems the pills have on the overall body’s metabolism.
Oh yeah, take a pill for anything under the Sun you want to improve!
Such a pity that there is no pill to combat stupidity!!! (Which seems to be more widespread in the universe than hydrogen).