# Gene Doping:  Add muscle, lose fat.  EASY!!!



## hardheadjarhead (Aug 29, 2004)

Gene doping.  It'll soon enter clinical trials and will add muscle and reduce fat in older people...and athletes.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E7ACE-5686-10CF-94EB83414B7F0000


Would you use it?  If not for athletic competition, how about for increased quality of life?  This is assuming its safe, of course.

What effect could this have on heart disease risk?

Check out the Belgian Blue Bull on the second page.  Talk about "cuts".  


Regards,


Steve


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## TigerWoman (Aug 29, 2004)

That has alot of interesting implications for all muscle related disease. And us old folks, aging people.  Gee, I could do TKD when I'm 90.  That article was too complex for me, read the first two pages and the last so I just got the gist.

I wonder if it would help other diseases like my niece who has MS. That is a nerve disease though, but these things have a way of introducing new avenues. Of course, competitive athletics will be directly affected. Might change the whole thing. Who's to know.  I also read they are trying to work on some kind of test for it already to see if it is present in the body.  TW


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## bignick (Aug 29, 2004)

i don't know...there are the benefits of increasing the quality of life for some people...and that is an avenue that maybe needs to be pursued...but if you spend all your time trying to improve your quality of life, you're not living it...

i think right now i'd say i'd not opt for this...maybe things will change...but right now...i'm content with working for what i've got...


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## Feisty Mouse (Aug 30, 2004)

Hmmm.  It looks like a valid attempt at a solution to some of the problems of aging, and muscle-wasting diseases.  In terms of athletes doping themselves... since the mechanism they are discussing seems to be one that, as is, cannot be "turned off", you may have athletes overdosing themselves, becoming as musclebound as that Blue Bull, and actually becoming worse at some activities.  I.e. long-distance runners - tend to be very lean, not carry spare fat *or* spare muscle.  Versus sprinters, or weight-lifters.

I think that if athlete doping became a really serious concern, the designed gene could be labelled with a phosphorescent label, or some sort of staining label, so that taking a sample from a person - elderly or an Olympic athlete - would allow one to know whether they had the gene therapy.


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## hardheadjarhead (Aug 30, 2004)

Feisty,

Just saw an article in New Scientist (shelf version) that talks about a gene doping form that would benefit long distance runners...the muscles are hypertrophied, but changed to "slow twitch".  Rats are able to run double the distance.


Regards,


Steve


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## Feisty Mouse (Aug 30, 2004)

Iiiiinteresting!  Hmmm.  Then I suppose labelling manufactured genes for gene therapy would be the solution to "gene doping".  Hmmm.


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## Lisa (Aug 30, 2004)

What an amazing discovery this could be for so many people suffering from a muscle wasting disease.  Muscle wasting diseases that slowly take "life" from their victims.  Children and other loved ones watching as their mother, father, siblings waste away could find new hope in gene doping.  Imagine being a father/mother and not being able to hold your children when they cry, walk your daughter down the aisle or bounce your granchild on your knee.  As much as I am sure there will be those that misuse the ability of gene doping for their own selfishness, I am inclined to look at the benefits that this would bring and the joy that could come to many families effected with these types of diseases.


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## hardheadjarhead (Aug 30, 2004)

This indeed could have some dramatic implications for people with chronic diseases.  Moreover, if it works, it'll push other like forms of gene therapy forward.  I would love an effective treatment for tendonitis and tendinosis.  

This morning I was walking with a guy who had started a growth hormone regimen...and he was telling me of some of the unpleasant side effects.  Gene doping would do some of what growth hormone does insofar as reducing fat and increasing muscle (and without effort).  Because it is a downstream effect, however, it wouldn't have the side effects of hormone therapy.  

The inner libertarian in me says that this stuff ought to be made available to the public at large...if it proves safe.  Some might consider the ethical implications if it works its way into athletics.  Still others might think it a mark of vanity if we start walking around with enhanced, sculpted "designer" bodies.  It is a mark of vanity, and we indulge it today with various surgeries that lift, nip, tuck, and swell.

Were it and drugs like it to become available, our standards of athletic beauty and performance might well change.  Chronic obesity might become a thing of the past as well.  Some forms of heart disease, as we've discussed elsewhere, may soon be cured.

We might become hedonistic and vain...moreso than we are now anyway.  Yet I'm ever the optimist and I like to think that once we sated our hedonistic impulses we would eventually yearn for a life of physical discipline--certainly the martial artists would.  We'd then practice that austerity with much more muscle power, wouldn't we?

Regards,


Steve


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## Marginal (Sep 4, 2004)

If there are no side-effects, I have a hard time seeing how it'd end up going the way of steroids (which do have significant downsides) I doubt hyper muscularism'd ever catch on in the mainstream , though there could be a few entertaining SF stories written about how the millitary'd handle access to a free super soldier serum....


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## hardheadjarhead (Sep 5, 2004)

Were it legal and safe I tend to think hyper-muscularture would catch on among athletes, cops, Jarheads (those are Marines, for those that don't know) and other service personnel.  If the level of muscularity could be controlled, it'd be a heck of a way to sculpt the physique.

It would be something to see those "pencil neck geeks" adding thirty or forty pounds of solid beef without trying...and then giving swirlies to the class bully.  I'd get a kick out of that.

In any case, gene doping of this nature may just be the start of a number of like therapies.  I read awhile back that with the administration of two peptides scientists were able to induce cell death in white fat cells.  Obese rats lost ten percent of their weight in a matter of weeks...without dietary modifications or increased exercise.   The article is below...the mouse picture might cause the same response you got with the Belgian Blue Bull in the first article.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007686A-F4AD-109B-B4AD83414B7F0000

More articles, same topic:

http://www.betterhumans.com/Errors/...Could_Treat_Obesity.Article.2004-05-11-1.aspx

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994974


The appeal of "cell death" in this case is that the total number of fat cells is reduced.  The cells don't merely shrink and release their fat...they die.

I'll probably post this as a separate thread.  Others might be interested.


Regards,


Steve


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## Marginal (Sep 5, 2004)

hardheadjarhead said:
			
		

> Were it legal and safe I tend to think hyper-muscularture would catch on among athletes, cops, Jarheads (those are Marines, for those that don't know) and other service personnel.  If the level of muscularity could be controlled, it'd be a heck of a way to sculpt the physique.



Just reading that first article you linked, it seems that the levels can be controlled somewhat either though direct injections to specific muscles, or  through weight training (though that'd defeat the point of effortless muscles wouldn't it?) 

I don't doubt that people already interested in performance would be attracted to HM, but among the general population that already views excessive muscle size as offputting, I can't see a whole lot of Joe/Jane Blows going for it. On the other hand, if it's being considered for maintenence in older folks, it must hit a point of diminishing returns somewhere along the line because the article made no intimations that we'd soon be seeing Arnoldesque grandpas strolling about...


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