Orlando researchers seek to find out WHY exercise is good for us

Researchers at AdventHealth in Orlando will soon take part in a national study that seeks to find out why exercise benefits human body functions.

The study is called The Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans (MoTrPAC or “MotorPack”) and is the largest federally-funded study on exercise.  The National Institutes of Health issued a $170 million grant for the study, a portion of which is going to AdventHealth in Orlando.

Exercise helps a variety of conditions including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even some cancers

“We want to better understand the why and the how exercise promotes all these great health benefits,” said Dr. Bret Goodpaster, a senior investigator at the Translational Research Institute at AdventHealth in Orlando.

Dr. Goodpaster says MoTrPAC aims to get down to the molecular level and look at how exercise affects gene function and proteins in the body.

“We you exercise, it releases all sorts of molecules into the blood stream,” he said.  “We don’t know what all these molecules are.”

For example, some of these unknown substances could be affecting the brain, which could be related to why exercise helps reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease.

For the study, AdventHealth will recruit volunteers of people across all ages, races and ethnicities.  They will all have to be relatively health in general.  Each will be put on a twelve-week exercise program with a trainer; some will do more aerobics and others will do more weight training.

Researchers will collect blood samples before and after exercise, and those will be analyzed at seven different sites across the country using the latest technologies.

“We will be measuring things that we don’t even know exist perhaps,” said Dr. Goodpaster.

He thinks some people might have a certain chemical detected and others might not.  They’ll try to figure out if it’s because some responded better to weight training than aerobics, or the other way around.

“We think that if we can identify some of these molecules, genes and biochemical pathways that exercise is affecting, then this could help us potentially develop non-exercise therapies or treatments for certain diseases and conditions as well.”

AdventHealth is nearing the point of recruiting volunteers.  Anyone who might be interested should call 407-303-7100.