Researchers discover key to restoring muscle function as we age
I don’t have to tell you that once we get a little older, our muscle strength isn’t Olympic quality anymore!
But what if there were a way to keep our muscles strong as we age — without spending hours pumping iron in a gym?
Well, there just may be.
University of Pennsylvania researchers have made a breakthrough discovery about a simple vitamin — one that could be like a fountain of youth for muscles.
This vitamin could hold the secret to keeping you strong and sturdy in your senior years — and it just may change how we treat diseases like muscular dystrophy forever.
Losing muscle strength as we age is pretty much a given.
And there’s a very simple reason for that.
You see, our muscle cells depend on their mitochondria — kind of like little cellular powerhouses — to generate energy. And our muscles require a tremendous amount of energy.
But, as we get older, those mitochondria can get damaged, become inefficient, or just stop working the way they should.
The end result — our muscles become weaker and more easily fatigued.
So these UPenn researchers genetically engineered a group of mice to have the same problem.
Their muscles started wasting away, and they had trouble running on a simple treadmill.
But once the mice were fed a B3 vitamin called nicotinamide riboside (NR), everything changed.
It was if their muscles came back to life!
The muscle deterioration was “completely reversed” (that’s right — completely) and mitochondria that had basically gone to sleep were suddenly woken back up.
Now, “completely reversing” muscular atrophy sounds pretty amazing, and the researchers say it may even lead to new treatments for those with muscular dystrophy. But there’s more good news about NR.
Research done previously in Switzerland, Canada and Brazil found that NR was able to act as a kind of fountain of youth in elderly mice.
Another one of the important jobs of the mitochondria is to help stem cells regenerate damaged organs. And when researchers gave mice NR to support their mitochondria, they ended up living longer than the mice that didn’t get it.
The team called their findings a way to restore “the body’s ability to repair itself.”
There’s no doubt that keeping mitochondria as strong as possible as you get older is vital if you want to stay healthy and steer clear of age-related diseases.
And now we know a humble B vitamin can help to do that.
So, you’re probably wondering how to get more NR in your diet. While it’s present in trace amounts in some foods, such as milk, it’s easily available in numerous brands of supplements.
Also, if you’ve had a problem in the past with something called a “niacin flush,” which is a common side effect from taking another kind of B3 called niacin, NR doesn’t appear to cause that problem.
Sources:
“Can a B vitamin reverse deterioration in aging muscles?” August 10, 2016, NewsMax, newsmax.com
