The Benefits of Exercise in a Pill?

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We know that exercise is an important part of staying healthy and improving weight loss. Recently researchers have identified a molecule in the blood that is produced during exercise and can effectively reduce food intake and obesity in mice.

So are we one step closer to having exercise in a pill?

The exercise amino acid

Let’s look at some recent research from the journal Nature. Researchers analyzed the blood composition of two groups of mice:

1. One group of mice was subject to intense treadmill running
2. The other control group did no exercise.

Researchers then compared blood samples from both groups, and isolated a modified amino acid called N-lactoyl-phenylalanine (Lac-Phe).

Lac-Phe was found in much higher levels in the mice that were heavily exercised.

They then fed this modified amino acid to other mice and found that it was able to suppress food intake by about 50% over a period of 12 hours.

When given to the mice for 10 days, Lac-Phe reduced overall food intake and resulted in weight loss and improved glucose control without the need for exercise.

Researchers then disabled an enzyme in the mice that was responsible for producing Lac-Phe, and showed that mice lacking this enzyme and unable to produce Lac-Phe did not lose as much weight from exercise as the mice that could produce Lac-Phe on the same exercise plan.

How Lac-Phe is produced

Finally, researchers then looked at data from humans, and found that sprinting exercises generated the largest increases of Lac-Phe in the blood, followed by resistance training, like lifting weights. The lowest increases were found in aerobic exercises, like walking or jogging.

This modified amino acid seems to be one of the many ways that exercise helps our bodies control our metabolism and lose weight.

Lac-Phe is a modified form of an essential amino acid called phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is found in most protein containing foods, such as fish, eggs, milk, beans, and meat.

Lac-Phe is created in our bodies by the combination of phenylalanine and lactate, which we get from lactic acid.

Lactic acid is a metabolite produced in our bodies when we exercise, particularly during intense exercise. It’s responsible for the burning sensation you feel from fatigued muscles.

It appears that a combination of high levels of lactic acid with the essential amino acid phenylalanine helps to produce larger amounts of Lac-Phe in the body.

So we can see that intense exercise seems to generate more Lac-Phe, and it may play a role in making exercise more effective for weight loss by suppressing appetite amongst other things.

This is interesting because a common belief about exercise is that it tends to stimulate increases in appetite, not reductions as this study might suggest.

Does exercise increase or decrease hunger?

So does exercise actually increase, or decrease hunger? The research suggests a much more complex answer in humans. Short periods of intense exercise appear to suppress appetite, at least in the short term.

Appetite returned to normal an hour or so after exercise, but perhaps this modified amino acid found in the study is one of the compounds that contribute to short-term appetite suppression in those who’ve just undergone an intense bout of exercise.

However, this appetite suppression may not be seen in everyone.

This appetite suppression appears to be weaker in overweight and obese individuals, and stronger in leaner and fitter individuals, suggesting that not everyone responds to Lac-Phe in the same way.

Also, appetite was decreased mostly in those doing acute and intense exercise, and may be slightly increased in those doing chronic or exercise, particularly when done after a period of fasting.

However not all studies agree with this, and many of them find that there is no actual difference in overall food intake, even if there might be more feelings of hunger after aerobic exercise.

I would say that the overall plethora of evidence suggests that the belief that exercise will increase your appetite is more of a myth, than reality.

I’m not going to go any further into this topic here, but the takeaway here is that exercise is almost always going to be beneficial to your weight loss journey, and the excuse that it might increase your appetite and make you eat more is just not well substantiated by the evidence.

Can you get exercise in a pill?

So could the discovery of this modified amino acid, N-lactoyl-phenylalanine, be one step closer to being able to gain the benefits of exercise in a pill?

No, this is just one of perhaps tens or hundreds of beneficial compounds that exercising can produce.

Also exercise stimulates lean muscle growth and gets the whole cardiovascular system working, something you’re just not going to be able to do with a pill.

However, it does potentially highlight some of the benefits that high intensity exercise like weight lifting or HIIT might have over other types of exercise.

High intensity exercises more effectively increase levels of Lac-Phe, and this in turn may help to suppress appetite, and improve glucose control.

I’m not trying to suggest that aerobic exercise, like walking, is not going to be as helpful as a form of exercise, just that it’s a good idea to incorporate higher intensity exercises into your activity routine if you can, since it might be able to produce additional benefits for your metabolism than just burning calories.

Now, if you’re thinking about trying to take Lac-Phe as a supplement or drug, don’t bother. It’s an experimental chemical not available to the public, and likely won’t be for many years to come.

Besides, you can make your own for free, whenever you want. You just need to do a little high intensity resistance training.

Exercise is much more than just burning calories, it stimulates the production of hormones and compounds that do everything from increasing fat burning, to improving metabolic health, and with this recent study, now potentially suppressing appetite.

So while any exercise is better than no exercise, the types of exercise you do can make a difference.

Learn more about

• Best Exercises To Lose Belly Fat
• Exercising for Weight Loss
• Foods for weight loss
• Other weight loss supplements

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