Miracle Pill: A pill to replace exercise may soon exist

It’s 2015, but we’re still not riding around on Back to the Future hoverboards. That’s a pretty big disappointment, but science is making it up to us by bringing us a magic pill that will give us the effects of exercise, without the sweat and hard work.

Yes, it all sounds too good to be true.

According to two new papers published in the journal Trends in Pharmacological Science, researchers have formulated a pill that imitates the results of exercise, mainly the changes it causes to our skeletal muscles.

The idea of the pill came from a study conducted by research team from the University or Sydney and the University of Copenhagen. The study found that exercising caused over 1,000 unique changes in our muscles.

With this pill, researches believe you will be able to reach your fitness goals faster. However, it cannot replicate every benefit of exercise, like making your bones stronger or give you an endorphin rush.

Contrary to what you might think, the exercise pill is not targeted at lazy couch potatoes. Instead, it is aimed at people who are chronically ill or elderly who are less able to keep fit.

Even if you wanted to get our hands on it, the miracle exercise pill would not be readily available to the masses for another decade or more. So don’t rush to cancel your gym membership while scarfing down a pint of ice cream.

Will we ever see such a pill in the market? Only time will tell. In the meantime, you’ll still have to get in shape the old way – with a lot of hard work and sweat.

Amanda Lim

Photo: Getty Images

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