August 1st, 2008

Researchers are currently testing two drugs that may allow people to burn fat and retain muscle mass without ever even getting off the couch.

The Wall Street Journal reports researchers have been testing the two drugs on mice by evaluating their ability to run on a treadmill.  One drug, known as GW1516, allows mice to run for a longer period of time than normal but it only had an effect on mice that got regular exercise.  Principal Investigator Ronald Evans called this drug a “no-pain, no-gain drug.”

The second drug, AICAR, “allows even sedentary mice to run longer, as if they were in good physical condition.”  In Evans words, “That is a true couch-potato experiement.”

Neither of the drugs were tested on humans during the research and there is a posibility that the drug may not work the same way on us as it does on mice.  However, researchers say “the underlying genetic switches activated by the drugs appear to be the same in humans and mice.”