Researchers have found high concentrations
of irisin in the blood of people who live to be very old and are healthy.
Or was the decrease in fat mass a consequence of the higher levels
of irisin?
Altogether, these results suggest that the PGC - 1α / FNDC5 / BDNF pathway is heavily implicated in the development of primary hippocampal neurons following physical activity and that the administration
of Irisin could be a very promising therapeutic option against neurodegeneration.
What's more, Spiegelman's team plans to investigate the potential
of irisin to advance the treatment of diseases such as muscular dystrophy and muscle wasting.
«Further experimentation will be needed to evaluate the involvement
of irisin and other factors increased by exercise and expressed by bone, muscle and fat tissue.»
Two weeks of voluntary wheel running induces higher expression
of irisin — a fat - burning hormone that is released during exercise — in bone tissue in mice.
Previous studies have revealed that exercise induces the production
of irisin and its precursor molecule, FNDC5 (fibronectin - type III domain - containing 5) protein, which convert white fat tissue into beneficial, calorie - burning brown fat.
They showed the antibodies could detect even tiny amounts of both forms
of irisin, and that they were the expected sizes of 20 and 13 kilodaltons.
The authors point out one caveat in their methods — that some irisin is lost during sample preparation, and therefore the amount
of irisin detected is, if anything, a slight underestimation.
The biotech companies and the scientists who purchased the kits largely ignored the possibility that their antibodies might be cross-reacting with other proteins and thus overestimating levels
of irisin, Erickson said.
«As a result, humans can produce less than one percent
of the irisin present in other species.
«This data should settle the controversy surrounding the existence
of irisin and its increase in blood as a function of exercise.»
But new research from an international team of scientists has found that the antibodies used to measure levels
of irisin in blood were poorly vetted and nonspecific.
«We found that exercising for an hour on a bicycle at a moderate level produced the same amount
of irisin as shivering for 10 - 15 minutes,» he said.
Not exact matches
«From a clinical point
of view,
irisin and FGF21 represent a cold - stimulated hormone system, which was previously unknown, and may be harnessed in future obesity therapeutics through brown fat activation.»
In the laboratory,
irisin and FGF21 turn human white fat cells into brown fat cells over a period
of six days.
Specifically, around 10 - 15 minutes
of shivering resulted in equivalent rises in
irisin as an hour
of moderate exercise.
The study examined levels
of the weight - regulating hormones leptin, adiponectin and
irisin in the blood
of adults who endured physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect as children.
Even after researchers adjusted for differences in diet, exercise and demographic variables among the participants, high levels
of leptin and
irisin continued to be associated with childhood adversity.
Participants with the highest adversity scores tended to have higher levels
of leptin,
irisin and the inflammatory marker C - reactive protein in their blood.
And new evidence supports the existence
of the «exercise» hormone
irisin in humans.
«Exercise - induced
irisin may not only act as an endocrine factor capable
of promoting the browning
of white adipose tissue, but could also regulate bone metabolism by autocrine mechanisms,» said Chen, who also serves as faculty in the Cell, Molecular & Developmental Biology program at the Sackler School
of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts.
«Spiegelman and colleagues have unequivocally shown that the «mythical»
irisin peptide is produced as a result
of exercise,» says chemical physiologist John Yates
of The Scripps Research Institute, also not affiliated with the work.
First, the antibodies failed to detect a protein
of the correct size for
irisin in any blood sample — even in horses that were training for long distance running.
The finding ignited hope and press coverage that
irisin could hold the key to fighting diabetes and obesity, perhaps one day taking the form
of a pill that could melt away the pounds without the hassle
of a workout.
Previous studies suggested that the hormone
irisin — named for the Greek messenger goddess Iris — travels from muscle to fat tissue after exercise to tell fat cells to start burning energy instead
of storing it.
Furthermore, none
of the proteins detected by these test kits in any human or animal blood samples were the correct size to be
irisin.
In addition, recombinant
irisin has also been shown to suppress sclerostin, a protein that is involved in bone loss during prolonged lack
of mechanical load, such as in bed - ridden patients.
On the other hand, mice genetically altered to have low
irisin levels in the brain had reduced levels
of BDNF.
The discovery
of the «exercise hormone»
irisin three years ago and more than 170 related papers about it since have been called into question by recent research showing they were based on flawed testing kits.
These researchers argue that the
irisin levels reported by commercial kits were actually due to unknown blood proteins, misconstruing the role
of the hormone in human metabolism.
Irisin, a hormone linked to the positive benefits
of exercise, was recently questioned to exist in humans.
Increased
irisin levels in circulation upon systemic administration can recapitulate part
of the beneficial effects
of exercise in the skeletal system,» said senior study author Jake Chen, D.M.D., M.D.S., Ph.D., professor and biological sciences researcher at TUSDM.
Potentially, if turned into a viable drug,
irisin could induce the benefits
of a workout without the workout (Photo: iStock)
The cells
of the mice injected with
irisin needed more oxygen and burned more calories.
Enzo Life Sciences offers neuroscientists a comprehensive range
of products to study the links between exercise and cerebral health including chemicals such as neurotransmitter libraries, recombinant proteins such as
Irisin or BDNF, and several antibodies, some
of which are described below:
Therefore, future study should cover the role
of exercise - induced
irisin on body composition including muscle mass and fat mass.»
«However, further mechanistic studies are required to investigate whether
irisin could act as a protective factor for the development
of cardiovascular disease and age - related disorders.
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Spiegelman and his colleagues suspected that FNDC5 (and the
irisin created from it) was responsible for exercise - induced benefits to the brain — in particular, increased levels
of a crucial protein called brain - derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is essential for maintaining healthy neurons and creating new ones.
Many
of the subjects also experienced changes in the hormones «adiponectin» and «
irisin.»