New Apple Ingredient Discovery Keeps Muscles Strong!
by: Michael Clonts
Natural Component of Apple Peels Found To Help Prevent Muscle Weakening
In search of an effective method to prevent muscle wasting that comes
with illness and aging, researchers have located a natural compound that
is very promising.
The findings reported in the June issue of Cell Metabolism (a Cell Press
publication), identify a natural component of apple peels known as
Ursolic Acid as a promising newnutritional therapy for the widespread
and debilitating condition that affects nearly everyone at one time or
another.
"Muscle wasting is a frequent companion of illness and aging," explained
researchers from The University of Iowa, Iowa City. "It prolongs
hospitalization, delays recoveries and in some cases prevents people
going back home. It isn't well understood and there is no medicine for
it."
The research team first looked at what happens to gene activity in
muscles under conditions that promote weakening. Those studies turned up
63 genes that change in response to fasting in both people and mice and
another 29 that shift their expression in the muscles of both people
who are fasting and those with spinal cord injury. Comparison of those
gene expression signatures to the signatures of cells treated with more
than 1300 bio-active small molecules led them to ursolic acid as a
compound with effects that might counteract those of atrophy.
"Ursolic Acid is an interesting natural compound," they said. "It's part
of a normal diet as a component of apple peels. They always say that an
apple a day keeps the doctor away..."
The researchers next gave Ursolic Acid to fasted laboratory subjects.
Those experiments showed that ursolic acid could protect against muscle
weakening as predicted. When ursolic acid was added to the food of
normal subjects for a period of weeks, their muscles grew. Those effects
were traced back to enhanced insulin signaling in muscle and to
corrections in the gene signatures linked to atrophy.
The subjects given ursolic acid also became leaner and had lower blood
levels of glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. The findings therefore
suggest that ursolic acid may be responsible for some of the overall
benefits of healthy eating.
"We know if you eat a balanced diet like mom told us to eat you get this
material," the researchers explained "People who eat junk food don't
get this."
It is not yet clear whether the findings will translate to human
patients, but the goal now is to "figure out if this can help people."
If so, they don't yet know whether Ursolic Acid at levels that might be
consumed as part of a normal diet might or might not be enough.
Journal Reference:
mRNA Expression Signatures of Human Skeletal Muscle Atrophy Identify a
Natural Compound that Increases Muscle Mass. Cell Metabolism
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