Certain exercises can help with muscular dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy is a debilitating disease that causes the weakness and breakdown of skeletal muscles that progressively worsens over time. The good news is that certain activities may help strengthen muscles affected by muscular dystrophy.

That’s according to researchers from The University of Maine, who came to this conclusion by stimulating zebrafish and watching them work out. Their research has been published in the journal eLife.

Zebrafish are an effective test model of muscular dystrophy because of the molecular similarities between zebrafish and human muscles. Zebrafish can also be bred with a mutation that closely models Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a severe type of muscular dystrophy that affects young boys.

Since zebrafish can’t lift weights, the researchers used a process called neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), which stimulates specific nerves to elicit muscle contraction. They designed four NMES regimens and named them after four common weightlifting routines: power, strength, hypertrophy and endurance. The zebrafish were then put into an underwater 3D-printed ‘gym’ made up of tunnels and electrodes, and the researchers analysed their skeletal muscles to see how they had changed.

The study found that while each of the NMES ‘weightlifting routines’ affected the zebrafish neuromuscular junction morphology, swimming and survival differently, only one — the endurance neuromuscular stimulation (eNMES) — improved all three, as long as it was accompanied by a certain antioxidant, heme oxygenase, and a receptor called integrin alpha7. As explained by Elisabeth Kilroy, first author of the study, “eNMES is defined by high-frequency, low-voltage pulses, which is similar to a high-repetition, low-weight workout that we would do in the gym.

“The longstanding consensus in the muscular dystrophy field is that minimising resistance training preserves muscle strength and mass because it lowers the risk for muscle damage,” Kilroy continued. “However, our data suggest that a certain level of NMES-induced activity is actually beneficial for overall muscle health.”

The research thus indicates that the right type of resistance training might be beneficial to human patients with muscular dystrophy. There is also potential for NMES to improve mobility and strength in patients with muscular dystrophy, though not much is known about applying the technology this way.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Danai

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