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Comment by seydor | Hacker News Reader

In a world were everyone is lean and ripped, i wonder if it being overweight will become the new sexy again

No medication to make people ripped (yet). Though I have to imagine someone is trying to find a way to induce myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy without gene therapy.

There is a pathway to target that encourages muscle growth without exercise, but it increases cancer risk.

Uh, also heart attack / stroke. (We're talking about anabolic steroids, right?)

Myostatin inhibitor mechanisms [1] [2] [3].

I see this pathway, GLP-1 successors, and rewriting adipose tissue memory [4] [5] as the holy grail of weight loss, muscle gain, and weight/composition management with little effort. Diet and exercise? Old and busted. Hormone orchestration is the new hotness (with perhaps a touch of gene therapy if needed). "We fixed the glitch."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin

[2] https://www.jci.org/articles/view/148372

[3] https://today.uconn.edu/2025/02/next-generation-of-weight-lo...

[4] https://portlandpress.com/bioscirep/article/33/5/e00065/5610...

[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08165-7

(not a medical professional, but i do not recommend anabolic steroid use except under the recommendation and supervision of a medical professional)

Yeah, I'm less optimistic we'll crack the pharma muscle gain without huge negative side effects any time soon, but it would be nice.

> (not a medical professional, but i do not recommend anabolic steroid use except under the recommendation and supervision of a medical professional)

That goes double for any kind of myostatin inhibitor, of course.

the bodybuilding scene has gotten more advanced than just steriods, for example: - SARMs (selective androgen receptor modulators) - eg ostarine - they hit your muscles androgen receptors selectively, nominally other receptors (ie reproductive) are skipped over - SERMS (selective estrogen receptor modulators) - typically used to reduce gynecomastia after steroid use, but interestingly one, clomiphene or enclomiphene, blocks estrogen reception in the pituitary, making it think hormone production is too low - so tells your body to manufacture more testosterone (yes, estrogen receptor blockage yields testosterone production).. this is the closest we have to a fertility drug and is prescribed as a fertility drug in women - cardarine - PPAR delta activator, activates metabolic pathways and used by athletes for doping - quite an interesting drug because it normalizes one's metabolism, increases athletic performance, lowers cholesterol, etc, wow! though to activate a particular minor cancer pathway.. never tested in humans since it gave animal models turbocancer. used by many athletes

But yea, most of these are going to blanket increase risks for various things - strokes, clot, heart attack... messing about with hormones can be quite damaging albeit I would take a SARM or a SERM before taking straight hormones. Cardarine is quite scary because of the cancer concern

SARMs are just relatively ineffective anabolic steroids. They likely have the same health drawbacks, through the same mechanisms, in addition to the drawbacks of being understudied and less effective.

SERMs aren't muscle-building.

Don't take SARMs or other AAS (aside from TRT under the supervision of a physician) unless you want to die young.

No, it'll mean 'Im too lazy to go to my GP and get weight loss medication'.

Same as people who can't be bothered to comb their hair.

> Same as people who can't be bothered to comb their hair.

which was definitely considered a desirable look at various times.

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