Recent research has shown some promising muscle building benefits of ursolic acid but will that equate to new muscle growth? Ursolic acid, a compound found in apples, basil, oregano, blueberries, raspberries, thyme and plumes, has shown exciting potential for muscle growth in catabolic muscles.
Ursolic Acid Increases Muscle Growth?
Researchers from the University of Iowa published in Cell Metabolism that Ursolic Acid also known as malol resulted in mice increasing muscle and shrinking fat. When examining muscle cells that were wasting they determined which cells were active the most then they looked for substances that had the opposite effect. Smart huh? They gave fasting mice ursolic acid and saw a reduction in the muscle wasting process. Over 5 weeks the mice grew stronger and larger muscles when taking ursolic acid. Here’s the figure from the study.
The animals also showed reduced leptin, cholesterol and triglycerides. The researchers speculated that ursolic acid targets IGF-1. As the receptor becomes more sensitive IGF-1 increases in the body. Here’s what the researcher concluded:
[testimonial1 author="Journal of Cell Metabolism"]“Given the current lack of therapies for skeletal muscle atrophy, we speculate that ursolic acid might be investigated as a potential therapy for illness- and age-related muscle atrophy”, the researchers conclude. “It may be useful as a monotherapy or in combination with other strategies that have been considered, such as myostatin inhibition. A systematic search for ursolic acid derivatives that are more potent and/or efficacious could also be undertaken.”[/testimonial1]Should you rush out and buy some ursolic acid for its muscle building benefits? Not yet but there is promise since it was first discovered in the genetics of human muscle tissue. There’s promise there.
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Any feedback from anyone that has tried it yet? As always, more studies are needed, esp on subjects without tails but looks interesting.
I know there is one product out now and I expect many more soon.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
Looks very promising but with all of these “activators”, if you will I’m skeptical. How much real walking around muscle will we see? As with Leucine, where’s all this new muscle growth? Similar to leucine I expect UA to have more anti-catabolic benefits than anabolic.