April 11, 2002

6:29 AM

Move over, Jared...there's going to be a hot new way to lose weight. Scientists have "found the chemical pathways that muscle cells use to build strength and endurance," making it possible to have a fitness pill.
posted by Kevin Sanders (9 comments total)

I see way too many "maybes", "coulds" and "somedays" in that article to get to worked up about it.
posted by aaron at 7:50 AM on April 11, 2002

sounds interesting, but i'll stick to body solutions, thanks.
posted by mlang at 8:52 AM on April 11, 2002

But I thought that the university of Dundee was there first! We even had a short thread about it. They both involve protein kinases so is there a question of precedence here?
posted by talos at 9:03 AM on April 11, 2002

building strength is easy, if you've the dedication to lifting weights. when i first began to lift, i saw progress in a relatively short period of time (3 weeks). losing weight, on the other hand, is much harder.
posted by moz at 9:10 AM on April 11, 2002

It just seems wrong to be able to build muscle without working. I wouldn't be surprised if there are negative side affects from trying to get around good old fashioned exercise. In fact, this might change bodybuilding and strong man competitions. If the pill really works, it could be a question of who has the best pill rather than who has the endurance and discipline. Although, it's also possible that the muscle you get from the pill won't be as strong as what you get from lifting weights.
posted by jaden at 10:23 AM on April 11, 2002

what if the muscle you get is stronger? or, just, exactly the same? like having one pill that is a 30-minute jog, and another thats a game of racketball. Would the fitness craze die? Would religious groups see it as a drug?

if you could take one pill that would offset sitting in front of a computer all day, would you? Not to be buffed, but just to stay conditioned for the activities you like to pursue after work or on weekends?

The future of technology is full of problems like this: muscle pills, cloning, gene therapy, super vision, nanabot-self-healing bones...
posted by th3ph17 at 10:42 AM on April 11, 2002

nanabot-self-healing bones...

That's not far off from an accurate description of what you have now.
posted by NortonDC at 10:49 AM on April 11, 2002

Wouldn't the pill make you indiscriminately muscular? I don't know about everyone else but I really don't want a hypermuscular face.
posted by srboisvert at 10:54 AM on April 11, 2002

I smell transhumanism. :)
posted by Foosnark at 1:25 PM on April 11, 2002