Muscle atrophy can be treated with Des-acyl ghrelin
Des-acyl ghrelin, which is an appetite-stimulating hormone, can prove to be an excellent choice when it comes to treating muscle atrophy, according to results of an animal study presented at the Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Muscle atrophy is a debilitating process in which life quality of patients is reduced with every passing day and patients experience extensive loss of muscle function and mass.
From News-Medical.Net:
“Because of the wide impact of muscular atrophy on public health, it is of pivotal importance to find new and better drug strategies to treat it,” Graziani said.
Graziani and his co-workers are studying des-acyl ghrelin, a form of ghrelin, the appetite-stimulating hormone found in the body. Until recently, researchers thought that des-acyl ghrelin was inactive because it does not share the main activities of ghrelin-stimulating appetite, fat and the release of growth hormone.
However, Graziani’s group recently found that des-acyl ghrelin shares some biological activities with ghrelin, such as stimulating differentiation of other cells, including-important to this study-cells that are precursors to skeletal muscle cells.
In this new study, the researchers discovered that des-acyl ghrelin has a direct anti-atrophic activity on the skeletal muscle of mice with muscular atrophy caused by either denervation (nerve injury) or fasting. Mice that were genetically altered to have increased levels of des-acyl ghrelin had less skeletal muscle loss than the untreated control mice. This held true for both causes of muscular atrophy.
The mechanism by which des-acyl ghrelin protects muscle against atrophy is not yet known, the authors reported. However, it is distinct from the action of anabolic steroids and IGF-1.
It was remarked by the involved researchers that des-acyl ghrelin offers a unique and direct anti-atrophic activity on the skeletal muscle of mice for the ailment that is caused by nerve injury or fasting.
Tags: anabolic steroids, des-acyl ghrelin, insulin-like growth factor 1, muscle atrophy, testosterone
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