Short, intense bouts of exercise trigger a molecular reaction in the body that provides greater overall fitness, better blood sugar control, and weight reduction than conventional workouts, a new study has found.

 

The findings, by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute, indicate the benefits are tied the actions of a single exercise-related protein triggered by intense workouts as short as seven minutes a few times a week.
 

The study, published in The EMBO Journal, indicates high-intensity exercise activates a little-known protein known as CRTC2 that leads to muscles to adapt and grow.
 

"The sympathetic nervous system gets turned on during intense exercise, but many had believed it wasn’t specific enough to drive specific adaptations in exercised muscle," said Michael Conkright, who led the study. "Our findings show that not only does it target those specific muscles, but it improvesthem —the long-term benefits correlate with the intensity of the workout."
 

The study, which involved mice, showed the workout-induced changes resulted in a muscle size increase of approximately 15 percent and, in an exercise stress test, fitness levels improved 103 percent after the protein was activated.
 

The new findings open the door to a range of potential exercise enhancements, researchers said.

"Nothing can supplant exercise; however, just by activating one protein, we clearly improved performance in animal models," said researcher Nelson E. Bruno, M.D. "We are now searching for molecular therapeutics that will activate the CRTC2 protein so that even an average exercise routine could potentially be enhanced and made more beneficial."
 

The study was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health.