When scientists at the Salk Institute gave mice a chemical compound that mimics the beneficial effects of exercise, something extraordinary happened: The critters ran on a treadmill for 270 minutes—70% longer than mice that were not given the pill. The researchers hope those results can be translated into a medication to help not just people who are trying to lose weight, but also those who are unable to exercise because of age or mobility limitations.
The extra minutes that the mice ran marked “a huge increase in performance for sedentary mice that never actually trained,” said Salk's Ronald Evans, the senior author of the study, in a video released by the organization (see below). “And it would take a lot of diligent training, every single day, to get that benefit. And these mice are getting it just because we're feeding them a drug that's reprogramming their metabolic properties.” The research was published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
