Being someone who regularly keeps up with health news, I recently seen something pretty amazing on Fox News. They had Dr. Garner on the show and he was talking about a hormone that’s fairly new to the medical research world – irisin. What’s so amazing about it is that it gives hope to possibly developing a new “exercise in a bottle” for those with diabetes and other health problems related to obesity. Of course, they don’t encourage the development of such a thing to completely replace diet and exercise. The point is that there are cases where certain people are simply unable to exercise and this could be a breakthrough for them.

So the question for medical researchers was whether this hormone could be increased to see the same results of exercise without users having to literally hit the gym. They conducted a study where mice on a high-fat diet that were also diabetic were given the hormone through an injection. The amount of hormone given was directly related to the amount that would be present after exercise. The results were impressive.

Researchers discovered that the level of this hormone is greatly increased after exercise and irisin helps get the same results. There are a whole slew of things that take place when you take irisin, just like when you exercise. There’s an increase in growth hormones and decrease in glucose levels, which are both awesome for helping with high blood pressure, diabetes and a number of other health ailments (especially those that are often related to obesity).

There may even be benefits to the mind and brain. The extent of this research is still minimal, but the outlook seems very promising.

While this is all very exciting, they warn that people shouldn’t just skip exercise altogether. They certainly aren’t trying to create exercise in a bottle that completely replaces all exercise and diet, said Dr. Spiegelman. Instead, they’re more trying to just nail down the specifics on the exact benefits that can be experienced with and hope that it will one day be able to be used to help those with diabetes, chronic obesity and even Parkisons disease. Yep, even Parkisons since it’s looking like it has a protective effect on mitochondrial metabolism.

The only company so far that’s been licensed for Irisin drug development is the Ember Therapeutics, based in Boston. You can learn more about these finds on the internet (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group).

Scientists and researchers are very encouraged by the results and are hopeful that Irisin could be used to produce “exercise in pill form,” which would give more treatment options for diabetes and obesity for those who are unable to get the exercise that they need. On the down side, Irisin doesn’t build muscle or strengthen your bones.