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You Say Tomato …
By George L. Redmon, PhD, ND
The surprising source of nature’s recently uncovered
naturally occurring steroidal alkaloid.
O
ne of the trickiest factors to manage
in training is the preservation of hard-
earned muscle tissue. Fortunately, by
combining the proper combination of
macronutrients and timing them appropriate-
ly, you can reduce or negate exercise-induced
muscle breakdown. This, as you know, helps
to kick-start or sustain the actions of specific
physiological mechanisms that allow you to
physically perform at a high level.
Recently, researchers at the University of
Iowa began looking at how various molecular
structures whose messenger ribonucleic acid
expression (mRNA), meaning signals they
transmit, counteracted molecular mRNA
signals that essentially amplified commands
to accelerate human skeletal muscle degen-
eration. As a reminder here, like DNA (your
genetic blueprint), mRNA carries unique
genetic codes in different series of patterns
that relay messages to structures within the
cell. Surprisingly, these researchers found
that a naturally occurring compound called
tomatidine heightened mTOR signaling, the
primary anabolic pathway that regulates
protein synthesis.
studies indicate that
tomatidine reduces
skeletal muscle de-
generation, enhances
recovery, and stimu-
lates skeletal muscle
hypertrophy in both
fast- and slow-twitch
muscle fibers.
30 april 2017 | ironmanmagazine.com
Tomatidine is a naturally occurring steroi-
dal alkaloid (a substance found in plants), a
by-product of alpha-tomatine. According to
researchers at the Department of Chemistry
and Materials Science at the Tokyo Insti-
tute of Technology in Japan, tomatidine is
found abundantly in tomato plants. Overall,
these researchers noted that in addition to
increasing skeletal muscle mTOR signaling,
studies indicate that tomatidine reduces
skeletal muscle degeneration, enhances
recovery, and stimulates skeletal muscle
hypertrophy in both fast- and slow-twitch
muscle fibers. As a reminder here, fast-twitch
muscle fibers are responsible for the speed
of muscular contractions and essentially
enhance the ability of a muscle to rapidly
contract. These fibers could be described as
the power-muscle fibers because they use
anaerobic (without oxygen) metabolism