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CRISPR muscle boosting gene therapy at few thousand dollars per year

Waverunner

Senior Member
Messages
1,079
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/...-for-muscle-boosting-myostatin-inhibitor.html

May be of use to some people with CFS. Nobody knows the side effects but some people already tried it and many thousands of steroid abusers will follow, if this turns out to be a better alternative.

Myostatin gene therapy successes in Monkeys and Dogs

One person in a million has natural myostatin inhibition genes. Myostatin inhibited humans have extra large muscles and tend to eat more calories. The reason it was not selected in human evolution is because they would be more vulnerable to starvation in hunter gatherer societies. This increased risk of starvation is generally not an issue in modern society.

In 2009, work was done on Macaque monkeys. Commonly scientific work is on rhesus macaques.

Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have shown that a gene delivery strategy that produces follistatin — a naturally occurring protein that inhibits myostatin, a growth factor expressed specifically in skeletal muscle — directly to the quadriceps of non-human primates results in long-term gene expression with muscle enhancing effects, including larger muscles with greater strength. The muscles were 15% bigger, 78% stronger and the effect lasted for the 15 month study with no negative health effects. The treatment produced no obvious negative side-effects and human clinical trials were expected to start in 2010.

In 2015, Chinese researchers reported successfully using gene editing for myostatin for making more muscular dogs.

The dog gene editing worked and it was easy. Thus the fears that it would be done by humans which with the kits it clearly will be.

If it works better than steroids then ten million or more people will use it

About ten million humans use steroids for performance enhancement and to improve appearance. Gene therapy Myostatin inhibitors will be like more powerful steroids.

Lance Armstrong was willing to transfuse and replace all of his blood at regular intervals in order to use endurance performance enhancement without being detected.

This genetic performance enhancement with a cost range of a few thousand dollars per year is being used and will see significant adoption and experimentation by the hard core steroid community. How much adoption there is will almost entirely be based upon how well it grows muscles. Clearly the steroid community is willing to accept some significant health risks and side effects.