Want to stay buff into your 90s?
A new study from the University of California suggests the idea is more than just a pipe dream. In fact, scientists may have found the set of biochemical signals that will allow older adults to maintain strong muscles.
In an interview in Science Daily, researcher Irina Conboy said: “Our study shows that the ability of old human muscle to be maintained and repaired by muscle stem cells can be restored to youthful vigor given the right mix of biochemical signals.”
Regeneration of muscle cells is a function of “the molecular signals they get from surrounding muscle tissue, and that those signals change with age in ways that preclude productive tissue repair.” Get those molecular signals back up and running, and it may be possible to keep muscles from atrophying with age. It may even be possible to stop the process of degenerative muscle disease.
To learn how muscles regenerate, researchers worked with a chemical called MAPK (which stands for “mitogen-activated protein kinase”), which plays a major role in delivering molecular signals to muscle. “When levels of MAPK were experimentally inhibited, young human muscle was no longer able to regenerate. The reverse was true when the researchers cultured old human muscle in a solution where activation of MAPK had been forced. In that case, the regenerative ability of the old muscle was significantly enhanced.”
Could MAPK become the wonder drug of the next decade, able to keep us young beyond our years — or to cure diseases that cause muscular degeneration? The researchers involved with this study hope to quickly bring their technique for muscle regeneration to clinical trials in order to get the answers.
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