The Exercise Pill

“The Exercise Pill,” by Nicola Twilley. The New Yorker, 11/6/2017.

This article was a total surprise to me. Not only did I not know there was such a thing, I did not even suspect the concept: that a pill could give you all the benefits of a workout at the gym. Instead of going to the gym for morning exercise, stay home, have a second breakfast, and swallow a pill. You will still burn calories, lose weight, lower your blood sugar, and increase muscle mass, all without any effort. Who could imagine such a thing?

In a laboratory at the Salk Institute in San Diego, there are two mice: the Couch Potato mouse, and the Lance Armstrong mouse. Both were raised exactly the same. Their exercise was limited to waddling toward a dinner bowl filled with pellets almost entirely of fat and sugar, meant to mimic the standard western diet (they say it tastes like cookie dough). The Lance Armstrong mouse, however, got in addition a daily dose of the experimental drug GW501516.

There was no confusing them. The Couch Potato mouse was lethargic with rolls of fat beneath greasy-looking fur. The Lance Armstrong mouse was lean and taut with eyes and coat shinny and bright. The drug even had benefits for mice that regularly exercised on a wheel. Their endurance increased by 75% with the drug. Their waistlines decreased, their body fat decreased, their insulin resistance decreased, and their muscle ratio shifted to the slow-twitch type that tire slowly and predominate in long-distance runners.

(As an aside, the article mentions that mice love to run. In an earlier study, a wheel left out overnight in a public park with a night-camera was in almost constant use by wild mice, even though they got plenty of exercise from their normal activity. Many repeatedly came back to the wheel.  They loved it!)

Drug 516 works by attaching itself to a particular gene, PPAR-delta, a gene that tells the muscles what to burn for fuel. With 516, the instructions shift to burn more fat, less sugar. In dozens of other ways, 516 also triggers biochemical changes that occur when people train for a marathon.

Unfortunately, further studies were abandoned when long-term studies on the mice showed a higher rate of cancer with tumors all over their bodies. Studies are continuing with a less potent form of 516. Meanwhile, another drug, Compound 14, produced a rapid decrease in blood-glucose levels by fooling the cells to think they are running out of energy, causing them to burn more fuel.

An early study relating exercise with health back in the 1940s compared the drivers of London’s double-decker buses with the conductors. Both had similar backgrounds, but the drivers sat all day while the conductors were constantly running up and down the steps. The drivers were almost twice as likely to drop dead of a heart attack.

All exercise drugs have the potential for beneficial uses with people who cannot exercise, such as astronauts, the elderly, the bedridden, and those with prohibitory health problems.

Many people are already taking the improved version of 516. The article says it is readily available online. It is sold as a research compound “for research purposes only.” (The author’s bottle said, “Rx only” and “Not for human consumption,” even though the statements are mutually exclusive.) At least six professional cyclists have been suspended for taking it. Even regular people with physically demanding jobs, such as policemen and firemen, take it. You can get an idea of the importance of all forms of supplemental drugs from the website musclechemistry.com.  (You have to register to add comments, but not to see the rest of the site.)

Another site, one more of many, is juicedmuscle.com

RWalck@Verizon.net