Researchers have found a potential new form of treatment to help patients fight against the common ailments of muscle atrophy.

Muscular Atrophy is a debilitating process that results in an extensive loss of muscle function and mass resulting in worsening of quality of life. It can take place with aging and inadequate food intake; it may also develop as a result of nerve injury.

Des-acyl ghrelin, which is a form of ghrelin and an appetite-stimulating hormone in the body, is the new form of treatment as per Andrea Graziani, PhD., study’s co-author, 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:

Currently, there are few options to treat the problem. Some of the treatments, such as anabolic steroids (testosterone) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IFG-1), raise concerns about safety and effectiveness, said study co-author Andrea Graziani, PhD. He is a molecular biologist with the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine and the Biotechnology Center for Applied Medical Research, University of Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy.

“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.

This study by Graziani and his team is expected to open new treatment avenues for treating all possible forms of atrophy. The study was supported by Telethon, Regione Piemonte, and the Italian Ministry for University and Research.

Tags: anabolic steroids, appetite-stimulating hormone, des-acyl ghrelin, ghrelin, muscle atrophy, testosterone

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