by Tracey Lloyd

For physical fitness results, take one capsule with food. Is this the future of exercise? No longer sweating it out at the gym but simply popping a pill?

Researchers at Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that they give mice a pill which stimulates their body so that they can run around a little mouse treadmill for long periods of time without prior training. Will this translate to positive effects for humans?

Maybe, but it’s too early to tell at this stage. While the results have found that in mice, endurance is improved, there has not yet been detail released on whether the drug will have a positive effect on cardiovascular fitness or strength.

The “exercise pill” may have a beneficial impact on people who are unable to be physically active due to disease or disability. For example, it may be able to be used to ensure that muscle wastage does not occur when a person breaks a bone.

A major benefit, if the clinical trials in mice transfer favorably to humans would be that if increased stamina, makes it easier for people to find the energy to fit 30 minutes of physical activity into their day. At least 30 minutes moderate-intensity physical activity daily is the minimum required to maintain a person’s health and currently less than 50% of people achieve this objective.

The drug tested by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies worked on the one gene in mice which controls muscular endurance. Human beings gain benefit from physical activity not in just muscular endurance but also in cardiovascular fitness and strength, as well as lowering their risk of chronic disease and illness, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and some forms of cancer.

Elderly people also benefit from physical activity through retaining brain performance for longer periods of time. Critics of the research have pointed to the fact that the drug currently being tested does not provide a benefit in either cardiovascular fitness or strength and therefore cannot be considered an exercise panacea.

The critics have also pointed out the fact that the “exercise pill” has not been tested in relation to its efficacy in providing the beneficial effect that physical activity provides in relation to chronic disease prevention, such as those listed above.

Improving stamina through the use of drugs can be considered to be a form of genetic engineering and the long-term implications for humanity are an unknown. Whether the mice in the study will die at a younger age than mice that are normally active or even inactive has not been reported. This poses a problem for human transfer effects . Would you eliminate exercise by popping a pill if the lack of physical activity put you at risk for coronary artery disease? Ultimately the research may reach a point where it will be possible to take a pill that provides you with all the beneficial effects of physical activity without getting off the couch, but will this occur in our lifetime? It’s unlikely.

Finally when we are physically active both our body and our environment benefit when we walk to a destination rather than drive we reduce our carbon footprint; will an exercise pill be able to give the environment a benefit as well as our body?