Exercise (Photo Credit: Instagram@rehadequip)
New Delhi:
Exercise is necessary for leading a healthy life and the tenacity of mind to go for workout session too is important for setting a long term goal for fitness. It is a common belief that daily exercise builds your stamina or capacity to perform exercises and after sometime your endurance, training duration betters. However, a recent study has found that another factor that determine your capacity to due strenuous workout and that is your genes.
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, research studying effects of exercise on body found a link between a genetic mutation that affects a patient capacity to take in oxygen in the cell contributing to exercise capacity.
Researchers for their study used a person who suffered from slow growth, persistent low blood sugar, and limited exercise capacity, but with high count of red blood cells as their subject. The genetic and protein analysis of the patient was studied by the researchers, also in in high altitudes, and performed a series of metabolic tests.
It was found that there was an alteration of the VHL gene, associated with impaired functionality in the patient's mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell which uses oxygen to fuel cellular life. The VHL gene – von Hippel-Lindau is primary for cells to survive when the oxygen availability is reduced. This reduced function of the mitochondria can affect a patient's exercise capacity, as compared to someone without the genetic mutation.
The study will help with a deeper understanding of the human physiology, especially how the body reacts in cases of reduced availability of oxygen.
