Nothing Can Keep You Down
Illness, Injury, and surgery bring about inactivity. That is completely normal.
If your are ever in an intensive care unit, being confined to bed is the norm. In fact, if you are over the age of 65, you may be confined to bed in the hospital even when you are fully capable of walking. They are concerned about your stability and the risk of a fall, so they confine you to bed..
But here is a fact that hurts
" Being confined to a bed is not good for your body"
After a surgery, you are likely to be physically limited until incisions are healed and you have some degree of recovery.
In all cases of serious illness, you probably have no desire to exercise. Your body hurts , so rest and recovery are far more pressing needs than exercise.
That also is normal, but inactivity has a way of multiplying the negative effects of a stress response, illness or hospital visit.
The Multiplication of Inactivity...
Scientist often wonder, "How do we know the degree to which inactivity amplifies the problems that occur due to physiological stress."
You may have wondered the same thing a time or two, but we found part of the answer to that question by a series of studies sponsored by NASA. Like being confined to bed, the lack of gravity during spaceflight reduces the physical work of movement drastically, with the consequence that muscle loss during space flight can be severe.
Odd as it may seem, enforced bed rest has been used by NASA for many years as a Model for the effects of the lack of gravity during space flight. We performed a number of these studies with research volunteers who maintained complete bed rest for up to a month. ( Studies have not only been done in young healthy subjects, but in older subjects as well.)
As you might expect, inactivity causes the opposite effects of exercise. Muscle mass and strength are reduced in bed rest. Bed rest also induces insulin resistance. (The rate of deterioration of these factors is faster in older, as opposed to young subjects confined to bed rest.)
The results were always the same:
"Inactivity in and of itself is detrimental to muscle mass and function. When coupled with stress, bed rest amplifies the muscle loss."
To try to better understand the role of inactivity, we did a study with healthy individuals who completed a bed rest trail. We then administered cortisol, a hormone that is considered one of the mediators of the stress response. We compared the response to cortisol when subjects were up and active to their response to cortisol when they were in bed rest.
Both bed rest and cortisol independently decreased muscle mass, strength and function...but the loss of muscle is much more rapid when the two factors are combined.
These studies taught us a great deal about metabolic changes brought about by serious illness or trauma. While the extent of physiological stress is less than in actual disease states such as cancer or severe injury, all the same metabolic responses are evident.
Reversing the Effects of Inactivity..
Next being practical scientists, we were interested in what treatments could help minimize the loss of muscle and metabolic problems that occur in these conditions.
We discovered two answers
1. Those who performed a minimal amount of resistance exercise preserved their muscle a lot longer than those who did not.
2. Those that took the essential amino acid formula (MyoHealth) multiple single servings per day, had the best results with slowest loss of muscle mass and strength. This was true for young and old subjects alike.
We also tested these treatments in a clinical trial in which essential amino acids were shown to speed recovery from hip or knee replacement as well.
If you have lost significant muscle mass due to illness, injury or surgery, you need to get your muscle back. You also need to make sure you do not replace the lost muscle with fat, as often happens due to inactivity and lack of essential amino acids.
Multiple single servings daily of the essential amino acids formula (MyoHealth) are proven to improve muscle mass and strength considerably. They are also the necessary ingredients for your recovery.
In the recovery phase, your body is healing and fighting against the metabolic responses. Also, in recovery, you do not feel like exercising or you may not physically be able to.
The answer is a balanced ration of the nine essential amino acids found in MyoHealth. This provides a unique stimulus to muscle protein synthesis, which in turn speeds up your recovery.
As you age, the only thing you want to speed up is your recovery time!!
