muscle growth tagged posts

Research findings may help identify drug targets for neuromuscular disorders. Using genetic approaches, researchers have demonstrated how a certain protein is involved in skeletal muscle growth. The findings open new avenues to develop drug targets for neuromuscular diseases and other pathological conditions.

In the gym, you are not just pumping iron, you are oxygenating muscle cells which keeps those muscles healthy, strong and growing — a process called hypertrophy, or an increase in muscle mass due to an increase in muscle cell size. Conversely, under the covers, lounging, your muscles may begin to atrophy, or shrink.

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Older people who have never taken part in sustained exercise programmes have the same ability to build muscle mass as highly trained master athletes of a similar age, according to new research at the University of Birmingham. The research shows that even those who are entirely unaccustomed to exercise can benefit from resistance exercises such as weight training.

In the study, published in Frontiers in Physiology, researchers in the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport and Exercise Science compared muscle-building ability in two groups of older men...

First author Woojin Han observes muscle tissue samples treated with the new MuSC nanohydrogel.
Credit: Georgia Tech / Christopher Moore

Muscles of the elderly and of patients with Duchene muscular dystrophy have trouble regenerating. A new nanohydrogel with muscle stem cells has boosted muscle growth in mouse models while protecting the stem cells from immune reactions that usually weaken or destroy them. A car accident leaves an aging patient with severe muscle injuries that won’t heal. Treatment with muscle stem cells from a donor might restore damaged tissue, but doctors are unable to deliver them effectively. A new method may help change this.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology engineered a molecular matrix, a hydrogel, to deliver muscle stem cells called muscle satellit...

An MIT-led research team reversed age-related endurance loss in mice by treating them with a compound that promotes new blood vessel growth.

Activating proteins linked to longevity may help to increase endurance and combat frailty in the elderly. As we get older, our endurance declines, in part because our blood vessels lose some of their capacity to deliver oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue. An MIT-led research team has now found that it can reverse this age-related endurance loss in mice by treating them with a compound that promotes new blood vessel growth. The compound, which re-activates longevity-linked proteins called sirtuins, promotes the growth of blood vessels and muscle, boosting the endurance of elderly mice by up to 80%.

If the findings translate to humans, this restorati...