The Rise of the Couch Potato Athlete: Scientists Develop Exercise in a Pill

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Researchers have developed two pills that can reproduce the biological benefits of exercise. The pills help your body's cells burn fat more effectively as well as boosting endurance. The Age of the Couch Potato Athlete is upon us.

Digital Journal -- You come home from work, flick on the TV, sprawl yourself down on the couch and suck back a bag of potato chips. And in this fantasy land, you're not even slightly worried about the salty heart-attacks-in-a-bag contributing to your bulging waistline. Nope. You've popped a pill that will take care of it.

The era of drug-assisted exercise is upon us, as researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California have developed not one, but two pills that may help us keep our belt lines in check.

The team of scientists, led by Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Ronald M. Evans, genetically engineered mice that could run for hours. The scientists then found a way to create two pills that mimic the effects seen in these "marathon mice."

One pill is designed to help people enhance their training exercises, while the other is meant for those who are less mobile and need a swift kick in the butt to get going. The findings were reported in the journal Cell on Thursday.

The scientists say the drugs also may have a therapeutic potential in treating certain muscle diseases, such as wasting and frailty, as well as obesity and a slew of associated metabolic disorders where exercise is known to be beneficial.

The Salk Institute explains in a news release:

Previous work with genetically engineered mice in the Evans lab had revealed that permanently activating a genetic switch known as PPAR delta turned mice into indefatigable marathon runners. In addition to their super-endurance, the altered mice were resistant to weight gain, even when fed a high-fat diet that caused obesity in ordinary mice. On top of their lean and mean physique, their response to insulin improved, lowering levels of circulating glucose.

"We wanted to know whether a drug specific for PPAR delta would have the same beneficial effects," says Evans. "Genetic engineering in humans, commonly known as gene doping when mentioned in connection with athletic performance, is certainly feasible but very impractical."

Postdoctoral researcher and lead author Vihang A. Narkar then looked at the effects of an investigational drug called GW1516 (not commercially available) on lab mice over a period of a few weeks.

"We got the expected benefits in lowering fatty acids and blood glucose levels but no effect, absolutely none, on exercise performance," says Narkar.

The mice were treated with GW1516 and put on a regular exercise regimen where they ran up to 50 minutes on a treadmill each day. Researchers learned endurance was improved by 77 per cent over exercise alone.

Then, in couch potato experiments, researchers gave untrained mice a drug and after a mere four weeks (and with no prior training) the mice were running 44 per cent longer than mice who did not take the drug.

And for those of you wondering how a drug like this could play out in the real world with an event like the upcoming Olympic Games, don't worry -- researchers have already developed a way to test for it.

Evans developed a test that can readily detect GW1516 and its metabolites as well as AICAR in blood and urine and is already working with officials at the World Anti-Doping Association, who are racing to have a test in place in time for this year's Summer Olympics.

Now all we need to do is figure out a way to get potato chip companies to design a flavour called "Couch Potato Athlete" with these drugs worked in to the manufacturing process. It was only a matter of time until laziness became efficient.