Many people that suffer from orthopedic injuries are
also at risk for muscle atrophy, a serious condition
where the muscles are “wasting”. Striking over 50 million Americans annually,
muscle atrophy impairs physical activity, predisposes people to falls and
fractures, and often forces people into nursing homes or rehabilitation
facilities. Exercise is helpful, but for people that are ill or injured, there
currently isn’t an effective way to prevent or treat it.
A team of scientists from the University of Iowa
published a new study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry that links tomatidine, a compound from
green tomatoes, to bigger, stronger muscles, in addition to preventing
and treating muscle atrophy.
To begin their research, the team searched for a
small molecule compound that might be used to treat muscle atrophy. They
focused on tomatidine because it generates changes in gene expression that are
essentially opposite to the changes that occur in muscle cells when people are
affected by muscle atrophy. Next, they tested its effects on skeletal muscle
and discovered that tomatidine stimulates growth of cultured muscle cells from
humans. Then they added tomatidine to the diet of mice and found that healthy
mice supplemented with tomatidine grew bigger muscles, became stronger and
could exercise longer. And, most importantly, they found that tomatidine
prevented and treated muscle atrophy.
Scientists are unsure how many green tomatoes a
person would need to eat to get a dose of tomatidine similar to what they gave
the mice, or if the same dosage would be healthy for humans. More research is
needed to answer these questions and to discover if tomatidine can be
incorporated into science-based supplements or everyday food to make them
healthier.
No comments:
Post a Comment