Muscles

Lean mass -- the weight of an individual's bones, muscles and organs without body fat -- appears to decline among patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. These decreases may be associated with declines in brain volume and function.

A University of Adelaide forensic pathologist has sounded a worldwide warning of the potential lethal dangers of herbal medicines if taken in large quantities, injected, or combined with prescription drugs. "There's a false perception that herbal remedies are safer than manufactured medicines, when in fact many contain potentially lethal concentrations of arsenic, mercury and lead," Professor Byard says.

Antioxidants increasingly have been praised for their benefits against disease and aging, but recent studies at Kansas State University show that they also can cause harm. Researchers in K-State's Cardiorespiratory Exercise Laboratory have been studying how to improve oxygen delivery to the skeletal muscle during physical activity by...

For the first time researchers are beginning to understand exactly how various forms of exercise impact the heart. Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, in collaboration with the Harvard University Health Services, have found that 90 days of vigorous athletic training produces significant changes in cardiac structure and function and that the type of change varies with the type of exercise performed. "Most of what we know...

For thousands of years, people have believed that eating large amounts of protein made it easier to build bigger, stronger muscles. Take Milo of Croton, the winner of five consecutive Olympic wrestling championships in the sixth century BC: If ancient writers are to be believed, he built his crushing strength in part by consuming 20 pounds of meat every day. No modern athlete would go to such extremes, but Milo's legacy survives in the high-protein diets of...

The familiar "no pain, no gain" phrase usually associated with exercise may be a thing of the past if results from a study on cherry juice published in the online version of the British Journal of Sports Medicine prove true in future research. Historically, a number of approaches to prevent exercise-induced muscle pain and damage have been examined, but few have been effective. Declan Connolly, associate professor of education and director of the human performance laboratory at the...

Cherry juice can reduce muscle pain and damage induced by exercise, suggests a small study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Many approaches have been used to try and stave off muscle pain and damage after exercise, but few have been effective, say the authors. Fourteen volunteers were asked to either drink fresh cherry juice blended with commercial apple juice twice a day for three days before exercise and for four days afterwards, or to drink a dummy mixture containing...

Our body's activity levels fall and rise to the beat of our internal drums—the 24-hour cycles that govern fundamental physiological functions, from sleeping and feeding patterns to the energy available to our cells. Whereas the master clock in the brain is set by light, the pacemakers in peripheral organs are set by food availability. The underlying molecular mechanism was...

A study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself. The findings will be reported in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, a peer-reviewed, scientific publicationof the European Molecular Biology Organization. "Our study shows that the ability of old human muscle to..."

For scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy, what seemed like a disappointing result turned out to be an important discovery. Their findings, published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide conclusive proof that, when a muscle is injured, white blood cells called macrophages play a crucial role in its regeneration. The scientists also uncovered the genetic switch that...

Have you ever noticed that people have thinner arms and legs as they get older? As we age it becomes harder to keep our muscles healthy. They get smaller, which decreases strength and increases the likelihood of falls and fractures. New research is showing how this happens — and what to do about it. A ...