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Interesting study

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Ultracat Jul 2024 1:28pm, 16 Jul 2024 15,684 posts	Quote Pin Ultracat archive.is
Ultracat Jul 2024 1:29pm, 16 Jul 2024 15,685 posts	Quote Pin Ultracat Would you be able to swap lifestyles
Canute Jul 2024 2:18pm, 16 Jul 2024 2,923 posts	Quote Pin Canute Here is the link to the report on the study in the journal Nature Communications: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Although the main point of the study was testing whether or not sedentary individuals could make major improvements in ability of their muscle to utilize fats after 8 weeks of training, I was especially interested in the rate of deconditioning of the athletes. After 4 weeks without training, in the athletes, VO2 max decreased by 3.5 ml/min/Kg. The investigators did not report initial VO2 max but I would expect a value around 40-45 ml/min/Kg for trained elderly recreational athletes, so this loss is appreciable and would have a noticeable effect on performance. The good news is that after 4 weeks deconditioning there was little evidence of loss of the ability of muscle to utilise fats. To my surprise, resting systolic BP decreased after de-conditioning, but this was perhaps a chance observation (p value was 0.09). Unfortunately the study did not examine how rapidly the athletes recovered fitness. I suspect that the athletes would have been able to recover their fitness fairly quickly. The lay article proved anecdotal evidence that at least one of the athletes went on to perform well in a 10 K race in the following year.
Ultracat Jul 2024 2:40pm, 16 Jul 2024 15,686 posts	Quote Pin Ultracat Thank you Canute
Lesley C Jul 2024 3:14pm, 16 Jul 2024 3,936 posts	Quote Pin Lesley C It is indeed an interesting study, I am author no 3 on it 😉. I was wondering if this would come up here. The point of the study was to look at the fats in the muscle. I did some of the laboratory analysis's and helped collect the samples when the participants came in. It was a tough project to get published! Once the athletes completed their last study visit (after deconditioning) they were finished with the study - it would have been nice to have them back to check how quick they got back to fitness. This test though isn't cheap to run and the BHF didn't give us the funds to do that. Most were distance runners that Alice managed to recruit at races and events.
Canute Jul 2024 3:45pm, 16 Jul 2024 2,924 posts	Quote Pin Canute Well done Lesley C and your colleagues. I can appreciate that it was not easy to find dedicated athletes prepared to stop training for 4 weeks. Perhaps is would be easier in a post-marathon period but that would be atypical and as far as I can see your colleagues did not recruit such individuals). I can also appreciate that there was not adequate funding to enable you to follow the athletes after they resumed training. On the whole, the retention of ability to utilise fats in muscle after 4 weeks deconditioning was re-assuring, though I note that there was a trend towards decrease in fractional incorporation rate for [U−13C] Palmitate. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is desirable to avoid long periods of deconditioning.
Lesley C Jul 2024 3:51pm, 16 Jul 2024 3,937 posts	Quote Pin Lesley C Thanks Canute.
pedroscalls Jul 2024 4:35pm, 16 Jul 2024 92,157 posts	Quote Pin pedroscalls Indeed well done Lesley, I occasionally did work for author number 6 back in his Rowett Institute days
GetOutTheDoor Jul 2024 6:19pm, 18 Jul 2024 938 posts	Quote Pin GetOutTheDoor Nice work! Cool seeing increased fatty acid uptake and the change to more saturated fat acids inside muscle cells with increases exercise. Thank you for both the work and the link.
HappyG(rrr) Jul 2024 3:57pm, 19 Jul 2024 50,474 posts	Quote Pin HappyG(rrr) Interesting study. Thanks UC for posting and Canute for the link to original published output. And to Lesley C for the actual work! G