This is a study in mice and suggests that if you exercise you save nerves and they implicate irisin, which is an exercise induced hormone. This idea is not exactly novel as there have been studies in other model systems

Muzaffar S, Tyagi A, Pugazhenthi S. Therapeutic Potential of Irisin in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Int J Mol Sci. 2025; 26:11348.

The idea that exercise is beneficial for health has been around for years and there are many ways. This is a study in mice and there are many ways to influence disease in mice. I would think housing mice with a cat or loud noises would do something similar but I do not advocate living with a pet lion or living on a building site.

It will take too long to go through this and if I were to critique it would take along time. What happens in humans is key. Inaddition as is typical of this types of papers (Nature/Science etc) it is hard to know what was actually done….The scoring is said to be a 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 score but it is not explained how you can have individual differences of 0.25. As every with this strain of beast there is variability from experiment to experiment, as such the control responses from experiment to experiment can be different e.g. a peak of score 1 in one experiment verses a 3 in another.

Irisin binds to alpha4:beta 5 integrins which are all over the body so translation of therapy may not be simple, but as the sequence of irisin is identical between mouse and human and humans exercise, this should be simple to translate into human studies.

I am sure exercise could offer many health benefits…..However, make sure you don’t wear-out your joints in the pursuit of fitness.

Rosenkranz SC, da Rocha JF, Moreira L, Schlachter P, Bier J, Healy K, Silva DN, Iqbal MA, Gharagozloo M, Xiong Y, Murphy MA, Lichtenfeld HC, Raich L, Schweizer M, Ertaş A, Woo MS, Vieira V, Honeycutt SE, White JP, Wyant GA, Friese MA, Calabresi PA, Sîrbulescu RF, Wrann CD. 

Aerobic exercise is a disease-modifying intervention in multiple sclerosis (MS) that ameliorates several progressive neurological symptoms in people with MS. Here we show that the exercise hormone irisin mediates neuroprotective effects of exercise in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mouse model of MS. We demonstrate that voluntary free-wheel running exercise protects against inflammation-induced neurodegeneration in EAE, but these neuroprotective effects are abrogated in mice lacking Fndc5/irisin. Peripheral delivery of irisin increases irisin plasma levels and reduces both clinical symptoms and neuronal loss in EAE. Although peripheral irisin does not alter peripheral and central immune responses in EAE, it induces a direct neuroprotective gene programme in spinal cord neurons and preserves synapses and mitochondrial activity, probably through direct binding to motor neurons. Taken together, these findings suggest that irisin induction in response to exercise confers direct neuroprotective effects in an inflammation-driven neurodegenerative condition, making it an attractive therapeutic candidate for MS.

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Source: multiple-sclerosis-research.org