MIT, Harvard Researchers Looking Forward to Making A Pill Packed With the Benefits of Exercise

Exercise does not only help people lose or maintain their weight but also has many positive health benefits. A new study from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School expands the understanding of how exercise and diet affect the body, offering insights for developing a pill that mimics the benefits of exercise.

According to Science Daily, the team studied mice with high-fat or normal diets, which either lived a sedentary lifestyle or were physically active. Researchers could catalog 53 types of cells in the skeletal muscle and two types of fatty tissue through RNA sequencing to understand the effects of exercise or a high-fat diet.

(Photo: Pixabay/Bru-nO)
MIT, Harvard Researchers Looking Forward to Making A Pill Packed With the Benefits of Exercise

Obesity: A Global Factor in Everyone's Health

Obesity is a global factor contributing to every aspect of a human's health. Per Harvard Medical School, excess weight diminishes almost every aspect of health. It affects reproductive health, respiratory function, memory, and mood.

This happens through different pathways, like the mechanical stress of carrying extra pounds and complex changes in hormones and metabolism.

The researchers of the new study, titled "Single-cell dissection of the obesity-exercise axis in adipose-muscle tissues implies a critical role for mesenchymal stem cells," published in Cell Metabolism, performed a study on the FTO gene region several years ago.

This region is linked to obesity, and in that study, they found that it has genes that control a pathway that prompts immature fat cells called progenitor adipocytes that could either be fat-burning or fat-storing cells.

The findings show a clear genetic component of obesity and inspired the team to look at how exercise might act on these immature fat cells. The team performed a single-cell RNA sequencing on the skeletal muscle, visceral white adipose tissue, and subcutaneous white adipose in mice.

The rodents were fed either a normal or high-fat diet for three weeks, and then each group was further divided into sedentary and exercise groups for another three weeks. They comprehensively cataloged 53 different cell types activated and suppressed by exercise.

They found that the three tissue types and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) control diet's effects. A high-fat diet modulates MSCs to store fat, while exercise reverses this effect. Also, a high-fat diet stimulates MSCs to secrete factors that remodel the extracellular matrix (ECM) that helps provide structure for enlarged fat-storing cells and create an inflammatory environment.

A Pill With the Effects of Exercise

They also found that exercise and a high-fat diet have opposite effects on cellular pathways that control the circadian rhythm. Exercise boosts expressions of genes that regulate sleep, body temperature, hormones, and digestion, but a high-fat diet suppresses them.

Ultimately, the study informs everyone that they should eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. Also, it expands the understanding of the pathways of how exercise and a high-fat diet could affect the body.

Researchers believe that the data could lead to the development of a pill that will not only help with weight loss but will also give the overall health benefits of exercise, NBC Boston reports.

That means roughly 42% of obese Americans who struggle with obesity could get help from a tablet packed with the health benefits of exercise. The team noted that the potential pill would be intended for individuals who need assistance with diet and exercise.