We need another pill like we need one of these. (Seriously, awesome – right??)“It’s a little bit like a free lunch without the calories,” says Dr. Ronald Evans, lead researcher of the Salk group. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… exercise in a pill!
Wait — we’ve been promised this before. A pharmaceutical answer to America’s obesity problem. Just pop a pill and watch your waistline whittle. In fact, I think GNC owes its very existence to our obsession with the Magic Pill.
But for all the pills being discussed today — Aicar and the quotable GW1516 — there actually is research to back up the spurious claims. Mice, jogging on twee treadmills, were able to improve their endurance and muscular response to exercise by astonishing amounts. The first pill worked all on its own while the second pill did actually require the lazy rodents to exercise but it amped up their workouts like no Hydroxycut or Stacker ever could.
All of this is very encouraging, so say the researchers, for people with medial conditions that make it hard to exercise like frailty or diabetes or… obesity. But for a pill claiming to help with America’s Most Reported Problem, the research says nothing about weight loss.
Sure the pills could help people exercise longer and harder. Professional athletes everywhere are wetting themselves. (Don’t get too excited, governing bodies are already aware of the drugs and are developing tests to detect them.) But as anyone who has exercised longer and harder knows, more exercise equals more hunger. The more calories you burn, the more food your body wants to take in.
So for the average couch potato, taking these pills, in true industry form, would probably lighten nothing but their wallet. But hey, now they can sprint to the freezer! Although we’ll have to wait for the human trials to see for sure I’m betting these pills will not be The Answer everyone is looking for.
Originally posted on The Huffington Post
(brief tangent:) it’s interesting to me that, and youre so right, what professional athletes are excited about is RECOVERABILITY!
that they could train for hours and not overtrain.
it’s the same reason I laugh that people think steroids are the easy way.
they are ‘cheating’ because they are ILLEGAL but they’re not the popapill and ploponcouch as so many think.
these pills could be a lifesaver for, as you said, the frail and elderly—-but for the rest of us?
Im a skeptic…on all levels.
Yup. One of my first thoughts was for the professional athletes.
You make a great point, too. There may be no link between taking the pill and weight loss, and I don’t recall hearing anything about studies being done in diabetic/overweight mice. Sadly, there is a genetic strain that gets really fat and develops diabetes a few weeks after birth.
What I want to know, and you may have read it, is how these pills work on a molecular and cellular level. What do they actually do to increase endurance and health?
(enormous tangent:)I WANT that thing that makes the square eggs!
(sorry)
TA x
I saw an article about this last week and I thought “good grief!” Why can’t people just exercise the old-fashioned way?And as for the recoverability thing, as with most things, too much of a good thing can be bad!
(in David Spade’s SNL voice) “Yeah, I’ve heard of this ‘exercise-in-a-pill thing…it’s called alli.”
Trust me, I’ll pop a pill…Advil was like candy in my neurotic Jewish household growing up. But some things are better off left to hard work and a good sweat. Like, oh, EXERCISE!
PS I want a square egg.
I try not to take any unnecessary medication – my first thought when I have a headache is to drink water. As far as an exercise pill, I think that it might be good for people who really can’t exercise (apart from those who can’t walk or move around, there are also conditions like extreme eczema that don’t react well to sweat). But for the rest of us? I think it would encourage laziness. I wouldn’t consider taking it for, say, 10 years, until it’s been proven, and then only to supplement exercise…
First thought: this sounds exactly like steroids. Woohoo, lets put more nasty stuff into our bodies thats actually going to likely harm us because we’re too lazy to get our butts out the door and walking!
I don’t like the idea of “exercise in a pill”. There’s just something wrong about that.
And you’re right about how people end up eating more when they exercise more- which makes me wonder, what if people actually started to GAIN weight because of this pill because then they start increasing the amount of food they eat even more? Soon nutrition labels will start having information for a 3000 calorie diet because that’ll be the norm. And there will be yet more health problems related to being overweight. We rely on pills far too much these days.
My “favorite” home appliance was the wonderful trash compacter! It could, like magic, turn 25 pounds of trash into…well, 25 pounds of trash! Or a more compact cat..yikes!!
As for the exercise pill:
I know a man, he’s an Internal Medicine doctor. He’s rock solid, handsome, and being crippled with MS. He still works out, but cannot walk, and must use a motorized chair at this point. I have watched him struggle with a courage that few posses. If something like this would help him, it would be worth it.
To go back onto Mizfit’s tangent on steroids, there is an interesting post in MDA about performance enhacing drugs…
My gut reaction about that particular pill is “whatever, just work out.” Though I am sure it could have a purpose for the people who cannot excercise… I am afraid it would end up in the hands of peeps who could, but would rather… you know… pop a pill.
I’m all for anything that helps people become ambulatory again. But, when it comes to weight loss or “exercise in a pill,” I’m VERY skeptical. Is this THE Salk Institute? In La Jolla? As in Jonas Salk? The man who discovered the cure for Polio? ‘Cause that leads me to believe it would be geared more toward folks who have trouble with movement, and not so much for those of us looking to drop pounds.
Oh, and square eggs? BRILLIANT!!!!!!
I really dislike the concept of these pills. Did you know Esctasy was originally a weight loss pill? Bad things can come of innovation and human trials.
As for the square eggs – I want one. Where can I find these crazy boxes? :p
I saw a news article on this last week. Amazing. You know people are just waiting with baited breath to abuse this one.
i’m not a fan of pills so i doubt i would take it. part of me thinks i wouldn’t want to because it would probably be ridiculously expensive … at least at first.
i also like to rely on willpower, however strong or weak it may be on a given day. so, no exercise pill for me.