As scientists and fitness gurus always say, exercise plays an essential role in maintaining the healthy shape of our bodies. It reduces the risk of development of life-threatening diseases, it boosts up the process of metabolism and may also release hormones that relax one, thus making them feel more active, fresh and happy – however, these are just a few benefits that have been stated.
We all know the fact that exercise helps to strengthen the muscles but how does it do it? Researches from the University of Copenhagen carried out an experiment that provides us with the evidence and gives us a great insight into what is occurring behind the scenes when exercise is working to refresh our muscles.
What happens is that exercise has a great effect on the working of a protein called Ubiquitin, the ‘Death Marker Protein’ – which breaks down extra, damaged proteins to prevent them to accumulate in the muscles.
Exercise increases the rate of activity of Ubiquitin, more of these useless proteins are broken down to make space for new, synthesized proteins. This helps in the development of strong muscles in our bodies that work more actively and efficiently.
A researcher named Erik Richter elucidates this action of a Ubiquitin in a more detailed and comprehensible manner. He said that the Ubiquitin reacts with Lysine found on the worn proteins, the products are then transferred to a Proteasome which takes in the proteins and breaks them down into amino acids.
Researches reached this conclusion after carrying out an experiment in which they took blood tests and muscle biopsies of a group of six subjects, between the ages of 26-28 years old and asked them to cycle a bicycle for about eight to eleven minutes. The results of the biopsies that were released after the training session showed the increased degradation of worn-out muscle proteins done by Ubiquitin.
This Death Marker protein wasn’t given much importance until scientists understood the significance of its presence in our body. Though, this discovery has created another long chain of queries for researchers and scientists who are now working diligently to hunt for their answers. Conclusively, no matter how fun it is to keep laying on your bed while texting your friends on your phone, one should take out some time to exercise regularly if you want to live a healthy and wealthy life. You have loads of time even if you have a really busy routine, you must learn how to value and utilize your time.
