The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s National Institute of Health announced that the muscle hormone Biglycan, secreted through exercise, effectively improves sarcopenia and fatty liver caused by aging. The results of this study were published online in the international journal “International Journal of Molecular Sciences.”
According to domestic meta-analysis research, 13.1% of elderly people over 65 years old have sarcopenia. In particular, studies on elderly people aged 70-84 showed that 21.3% of men and 13.8% of women have sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is not just a phenomenon of aging but a disease where muscle mass, strength, and function abnormally decrease with age.
Researchers at the National Institute of Health focused on myokines, muscle hormones that decrease with aging, using open transcriptome datasets and plasma proteome analysis from the National Center for Biotechnology Information. They found that the amount of Biglycan, one of the myokines, significantly decreased in the muscles and blood of the elderly.
In experiments with mice, aged mice showed decreased levels of Biglycan in their blood and muscles compared to young mice. After four months of exercise, the aged mice showed improved muscle function and increased muscle Biglycan levels. Additionally, it was found that increased Biglycan through exercise promotes muscle protein synthesis, alleviating sarcopenia.