Des-acyl ghrelin, an appetite-stimulating hormone, can provide relief to patients with muscle atrophy as per the results of an animal study that were presented at the Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Muscular atrophy can be classified as a debilitating process that causes extensive loss of muscle mass and function leading to reductions in the quality of life. Some of the recommended treatment options include anabolic steroids (testosterone) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IFG-1), which are not complete safe according to study co-author Andrea Graziani, PhD, molecular biologist with the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and the Biotechnology Center for Applied Medical Research, University of Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy.
From News-Medical.Net:
“Because of the wide impact of muscular atrophy on public health, it is of pivotal importance to find new and better drug strategies to treat it,” Graziani said.
Graziani and his co-workers are studying des-acyl ghrelin, a form of ghrelin, the appetite-stimulating hormone found in the body. Until recently, researchers thought that des-acyl ghrelin was inactive because it does not share the main activities of ghrelin-stimulating appetite, fat and the release of growth hormone.
However, Graziani’s group recently found that des-acyl ghrelin shares some biological activities with ghrelin, such as stimulating differentiation of other cells, including-important to this study-cells that are precursors to skeletal muscle cells.
In this new study, the researchers discovered that des-acyl ghrelin has a direct anti-atrophic activity on the skeletal muscle of mice with muscular atrophy caused by either denervation (nerve injury) or fasting. Mice that were genetically altered to have increased levels of des-acyl ghrelin had less skeletal muscle loss than the untreated control mice. This held true for both causes of muscular atrophy.
The mechanism by which des-acyl ghrelin protects muscle against atrophy is not yet known, the authors reported. However, it is distinct from the action of anabolic steroids and IGF-1.
The involved researchers remarked that des-acyl ghrelin provides a direct direct anti-atrophic activity on the skeletal muscle of mice for the ailment caused by nerve injury or fasting.
