New drug mimics the beneficial effects of exercise
A drug known as SR9009, which is currently under development at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), increases the level of metabolic activity in skeletal muscles of mice. Treated mice become lean, develop larger muscles and can run much longer distances simply by taking SR9009, which mimics the effects of aerobic exercise. If similar effects can be obtained in people, the reversal of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and perhaps Type-II diabetes might be the very welcome result.
The article explains that mice in one group were kept from getting any exercise at all, fed a normal diet, yet developed athletic physiques and demonstrated a 50 percent increase in stamina.
All sounds pretty wonderful, doesn't it?
Not so fast . . .
If they actually come to market, these new ‘muscle meds’ will be more popular than hillbilly heroin. Every cube rat, programmer, sofa surfer, video gamer and bowling team in the country will want theirs, at any price.
Even professional athletes — starting with A-Rod. Aw, hell — he probably has an inside supplier at Scripps’ laboratory already. Better check your inventory, stat!
Just imagine! One little pill with your donuts and Pop-Tarts every morning, yet you build muscle mass through a regular day of washing down all the fast food you please with Mountain Dew and Red Bull, and you’re still guilt-free as you belly up to the bar after work — with no belly! It’s like paradise!
An entire demographic of Americans will abandon their electric scooters, see their toes for the first time in years, be able to wipe their own bottoms, and fit into a standard size bathtub without getting stuck.
Yes, there will inevitably be abusers — people who want to be stronger, larger — ripped from head to toe.
Fortunately, their 46″ biceps, tree trunk legs and necks so thick they cannot turn their heads will make such addicts easy to spot. Some tranquilizer darts and a team of 15 or 20 Marines should be sufficient to wrestle an abuser into a reinforced holding cell, where they’ll have nothing but HBO, a Barcalounger and Cheetos by the bucketful. That should return them to normal human proportions in a month or two.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The consequences of this medicine will be far more serious than that.
It will divide our species, for openers. Those of us who don’t partake, who prefer our Mediterranean diet, our jogging, bicycling, yoga and elliptical trainers will appear like little stick figures beside the newly enhanced muscle monsters dominating the planet. We’ll have to live in protected colonies, kept safe from contact with these metabolically enhanced creatures who were once our friends and families, these bipedal mastodons who can inadvertently maim us with a simple handshake.
In the name of Baron von Fronkensteen, what have we done?!?