Rejoice, couch potatoes! Soon, people may not literally workout but still receive the benefits of working out with the help of anexercise pill.
Scientists are a notch closer to developing the exercise pills as published in Cell Metabolism. A study on a group of four untrained, healthy males in University of Sydney after a 10-minute exercise led to the discovery of 1,000 molecular changes that has taken place during the workout.
"While scientists have long suspected that exercise causes a complicated series of changes to human muscle, this is the first time we have been able to map exactly what happens," co-author of the paper Dr. Nolan Hoffman of University of Sydney said in a statement.
The research suggests that the pill will have to target some number of multiple molecules to be successful. Exercise pills are being developed by several laboratories and are being tested in animals which will boost skeletal muscles. Thus, it will help improve strength and energy usage.
Studies like the ones conducted by University of Sydney and University of British Columbia in Vancouver are just some of the laboratory studies on the exercise pill that are currently being done.
However, healthy and able people must not rely on the pill because it is ideally for those who are unable to exercise such as amputee and stroke victims. In fact, a similar drug which enhances athletes' performance has been abandoned in 2006 after it caused cancer on some animals. Somehow, the said drug is still available in the black market.
"It is unrealistic to expect that exercise pills will fully be able to substitute for physical exercise -- at least not in the immediate future," Ismail Laher stated in a release at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
"Exercise requires your heart rate to go up, blood to flow faster, and you cannot do that with an exercise pill... but in particular groups, it's the next best thing," Laher added.
If the pill has been successfully proven and tested, it will hit the market by storm with the urge of busy people, who doesn't have time to go to the gym, around the world to maintain their bodies.
Would they be able to make the exercise pill? Would you try it?
