A protein called Sestrin might be responsible for many of the benefits of a good workout according to new research
No matter how little the exercise you perform (i.e. brisk walking), or a high-intensity interval training (HIIT), it’s undeniable that workouts benefits our bodies by boosting health. But what if you found a way to skip the workouts and just go straight to reaping the benefits of it while sipping tea in your backyard?
Sestrin Research
A new research conducted by the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan discovered a protein called Sestrin, which is a naturally occurring compound found in both humans and animals can reproduce the same effects that exercises produces when they tested it in flies and mice. This is a groundbreaking discovery as it can help fight muscle entropy due to aging among other causes.
Jun Hee Lee, Ph.D. and Myungjin Kim, Ph.D., who are researchers at the University of Michigan’s Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology noted that they have previously observed Sestrin to accumulate in the muscles every time after a person workout. Now they want to know if they could duplicate the protein and inject it directly to patients who need it, and whether or not it will work the same way it does when people exercise.
Robert Wessells, Ph.D. and Alyson Sujkowski of Wayne State University in Detroit are collaborating with the team from the University of Michigan in this research. They helped create a sort of fly treadmill for the Drosophila flies and trained it for 3 weeks, then compared the results with flies that are genetically modified to not be able to produce Sestrin in their muscles. They found that the flies that have the ability to produce Sestrin could run around now for about 4 – 6 hours, but the normal flies showed no improvement.
Further down the road of their research they tried to overexpress the Sestrin in the muscles of the normal flies and found that it resulted in giving them far greater abilities compared to the flies that could not produce it in their muscles. As a matter of fact, the flies with overexpressed Sestrin didn’t develop more endurance throughout the 3-week training, or as the scientists put it – they didn’t have to.
When they tested it on mice they found that the group that were not given this supplement had low aerobic capacity, abnormal respiration activity and the ability to burn calories, which would have been normal – above normal had these mice were exercising. Dr. Lee thinks that Sestrin could be the key to reorganize different metabolic pathways in order to help improve the patient’s health.
Pharmaceutical companies would be so pleased with this research and we might soon see Sestrin food supplement flooding the market.
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