Ree Vannin
2024 oldGOD
Muscle memory discovery ends 'use it or lose it' dogma
The old adage "use it or lose it" tells us: if you stop using your muscles, they'll shrink. Until recently, scientists thought this meant that nuclei—the cell control centers that build and maintain muscle fibers—are also lost to sloth.
medicalxpress.com
>modern lab techniques now allow us to see that nuclei gained during training persist even when muscle cells shrink due to disuse or start to break down. These residual 'myonuclei' allow more and faster growth when muscles are retrained—suggesting that we can "bank" muscle growth potential in our teens to prevent frailty in old age.