Aging muscles need to blow the carburetor
Doctors have come up with a medicine that helps to preserve muscles in old age
An international team of physicians has found out why the muscles of the arms, legs and other parts of the body become decrepit with the onset of old age, and found a way to create a special drug that helps preserve them, according to an article published in the journal Cell Metabolism (Bujak et al., AMPK Activation of Muscle Autophagy Prevents Fasting-Induced Hypoglycemia and Myopathy during Aging – VM).
"We found that the proper functioning of the "carburetor" in muscle cells, an enzyme called AMP protein kinase, is an important factor in slowing muscle aging. Mice in which we removed the AMPK gene in muscle cells weakened much faster than we expected to see for rodents of their age. In 50 conditional years, they looked like centenarians leading a stationary lifestyle," Gregory Steinberg from McMaster University in Hamilton (Canada) said (in an interview on the McMaster University Researchers discover key to maintaining muscle strength while we age – VM).
Steinberg and his colleagues were interested in this enzyme for the reason that in previous experiments they found out that prolonged exercise exercises "turn on" AMPK and make muscle cells more actively manage their metabolism. In turn, constant physical exercise until today was the only way known to doctors to slow down the aging of muscles.
Guided by this idea, the doctors decided to check what would happen if they turned off the gene that controls the work of this protein in the muscle cells of mice. As the experiment showed, the muscles of such rodents aged noticeably faster than the muscles of normal mice, and besides, they recovered more slowly after episodes of hunger.
The reason for this, as scientists found out, was that a decrease in the activity of AMPK deprives muscles of the ability to sacrifice part of the cells in order to save the rest of the muscle fibers, as well as the fact that this enzyme is necessary for the normal metabolism of amino acids in the body. In young years, these negative effects are not so noticeable, but with the onset of old age, they begin to noticeably accelerate the decrepitude of muscles.
"We know that we can "turn on" AMPK with the help of charging and a number of medications that are used to combat type 2 diabetes. Since we now know that this protein is important for maintaining muscle mass as the body ages, these same drugs and exercises can also be adapted to protect muscles from aging," concludes Steinberg.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru03.06.2015