Can a pill really mimic all the beneficial effects of exercise? You’d think so from some of the stories about substances that “could make going to the gym unnecessary”. There was another rash of these a few weeks ago, when researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark announced that a drug called LaKe “brings the body into a metabolic state corresponding to running 10km at high speed on an empty stomach”. But what’s going on here? Even if a pill can replicate parts of what exercise does for us, how useful is that, really?

First things first: the most commonly accepted term for drugs like LaKe is “mimetics”, because what they do, as a rule, is mimic the biological effects of working out without the need to actually break a sweat. The idea has been around for a while: in 2008, San Diego’s Salk Institute introduced the world to a drug called GW501516 (516 for short), which signals key genes to burn fat instead of sugar, helping rodent test subjects run for longer without hitting the proverbial wall.

In later tests, a pair of rodents nicknamed Couch Potato Mouse and Lance Armstrong Mouse, both reared on the same diet of fatty, sugary pellets, did the same amount of daily physical activity, but Lance Armstrong Mouse was dosed with 516 – and markedly increased its endurance, while staying much leaner than its control counterpart. A variant of 516 quickly ended up on the black market as a banned doping agent known as Endurabol, and the World Anti-Doping Agency issued warnings to athletes that it was unsafe – but plenty more mimetics were already in development.

Compound 14, first announced in 2015, started development as a way to treat other diseases, before researchers discovered that it could reduce fasting blood glucose levels, improve glucose tolerance and promote weight loss in obese mice. Since then, we’ve also seen research on Lac-Phe, a chemical usually produced in the body through resistance training, and a new molecule known as SLU-PP-332, which boosts metabolism and endurance, helping rodents run 50% further than they previously could. The latter, its lead researcher says, tells skeletal muscle to make the changes typically provoked by endurance training. That has the potential to help dieters maintain muscle mass during weight loss, or older people avoid sarcopenia as their bodies respond less strongly to exercise.

LaKe is still in the rat-study stage of development, so it’s not certain that the results will transfer over to humans. But what it seems to do is first prompt a quick surge of lactate in the body – mimicking the sort of effect you’d typically see after a bout of high-intensity exercise – and then a more gradual increase of a chemical called beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). BHB is a ketone, or a chemical synthesised in the liver from fatty acids to provide the body with energy when it doesn’t have enough glucose – which is where the notion of “running on an empty stomach” comes from.

Between them, these two changes do seem to lower the level of free fatty acids in the bloodstream and also suppress appetite – which are effects you’d expect from fasted exercise (working out without eating beforehand), and could help to reduce the risk of conditions such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes over the long term. And (again, in rats) the pill seems to show no signs of toxicity – unlike early versions of 516, which promoted rapid cancer cell growth in their rodent test subjects. Promising stuff, then – but is it really that simple?

Well, it’s tough to say. Exercise affects almost all of the body’s systems, in often intricate ways that we’re a long way from understanding (the largest research programme dedicated to comprehending its impact at the molecular level, using almost 2,600 volunteers, is still ongoing). Together, many of the drugs mentioned above might be able to mimic any number of these – perhaps working in conjunction with already government-approved interventions like Ozempic to encourage a host of benefits. But any supplement has limitations: exercise is a full-body experience, with downstream effects that include everything from improved bone density to better sleep. It enhances mood and self-esteem while decreasing stress, and it seems to have qualities that protect against dementia. All of these impacts come from complex interactions between any number of biological effects – but even if science could mimic them all with pills, it would be much tougher to recreate the psychological advantages of running a 5k with friends, or hitting a new personal best in the squat.

We’re still a fairly long way from finding safe drugs that can replicate exercise’s most beneficial effects in humans, but when they exist, they’ll probably be most useful for people who are elderly, ill, infirm, or otherwise unable to do the real thing. They might help people recovering from surgery – or astronauts who, even if they work out while in orbit, suffer bone loss and muscle wastage because their bodies work less hard in microgravity. For the rest of us, the benefits of a gentle walk or a handful of squats are tough to mimic with pills, and (reasonably) easy to get without them. One day, perhaps we’ll be able to take our exercise in pill form – but right now, it’s much easier to hit the road.

The Osage Nation executive branch on Oct. 28 celebrated the completion of the first phase of the development south of Main Street in downtown Pawhuska of a new outdoor health complex.

The complex is located between Lynn Avenue on the east and Kihekah Avenue on the west. It stretches along what once was a depot site for the Midland Valley Railroad. A new concrete walking trail forms a perimeter for it. Pickleball courts, as well as fitness equipment and courses, are available for free public use. Publicly accessible parking is available on three sides.

Casey Johnson, secretary of Development for the Osage Nation, said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony that future additions to the complex are expected to include sports fields. The loop of walking trail will offer safety from motor vehicle traffic to persons walking to lose weight or achieve other health-related goals, he said. Johnson shared that he recently needed to lose weight and ended up walking along public streets, one result of which was that he was nearly run over more than once.

Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear said the continued development of the exercise complex will require additional political and financial support. The Osage Nation executive branch established the facility without the backing of the Osage Nation Congress. Ribbon cuttings for new Osage Nation amenities typically feature recognition for members of Congress, but that was missing Oct. 28.

“We’re working on it every day,” Standing Bear said regarding additional backing for the exercise complex. Standing Bear is in his third four-year term as principal chief and has been an energetic proponent of expanding health, education and housing services.

“It’s real. It’s really happening,” Standing Bear said regarding the exercise complex. “You see, I’ve got to exercise.”

Johnson said that the idea for the new complex came from Osage Nation executive branch deliberations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One of the things we talked about was getting people healthy,” Johnson said. Survey work was done regarding the health of people in Osage County and the results were disturbing, he said.

“And they found that the farther away from Osage County you get, the healthier you get,” Johnson said.

MONDAY, Nov. 4, 2024 (HealthDay News) — There’s just something about sitting.

New research shows that too much time on sofas and chairs harms the heart — even among people who get the minimum recommended amount of daily exercise.

“Taking a quick walk after work may not be enough” to offset the health dangers of sitting, said study lead author Chandra Reynolds. She’s a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Her team published its findings recently in the journal PLOS One.

The data comes from an ongoing study of over a thousand former or current Coloradans, 730 of who are twins. Reynolds’ team focused on participants aged 28 to 49.

Study lead author Ryan Bruellman said the cohort was relatively young, because “young adults tend to think they are impervious to the impacts of aging. But what you do during this critical time of life matters.”

Bruellman is now a PhD candidate at the University of California, Riverside.

A lot of the participants were sitting a lot of the time: An average of almost nine hours per day, according to the study.

Exercise rates ranged from 80 and 160 minutes of moderate physical activity per week and less than 135 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly. 

The Boulder team then assessed each person’s “heart age” using two key heart health indicators: total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein and body mass index (BMI).

The result: As sitting time increased, heart aging did, too.

Even when folks met minimum daily exercise recommendations — about 20 minutes per day of “moderate” exercise — the deleterious effect to the heart of all that sitting didn’t budge.

Adding in “vigorous” exercise (for example, running or cycling) for about 30 or more minutes per day did seem to help counteract the harms from sitting, however. But it still didn’t bring those harms back to zero.

According to a news release from the university, data from the twins in the study suggests that “replacing sitting with exercise seemed to work better to improve cholesterol than simply adding exercise to a full day of sitting.”

The researchers’ suggestions for folks who sit a lot: Try using a standing desk at work, get in at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise per day or add in strenuous workouts on your days off as a “weekend warrior.”

More information

Find out more about the health dangers of sitting at Johns Hopkins University.

SOURCE: University of Colorado Boulder, news release, Nov. 1, 2024