Tag Archives: endurance

Enhance Endurance: Top Smartphone App for Men to Prolong Time in Bed

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Premature Ejaculation - A Common Concern

Premature ejaculation is believed to affect one in three men.

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Recent preliminary results from a small randomized trial suggest that men dealing with premature ejaculation can enhance their control and prolong intercourse using a smartphone app.

Premature ejaculation (PE) is identified as the most common sexual dysfunction in men; studies estimate that it affects one in three men. While several treatment options exist, such as local anesthetics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), these often require continuous use and can come with side effects. Furthermore, medications must be taken shortly before sexual activity, which undermines spontaneity. “Current treatments do not resolve the issue,” explains Christer Groeben from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

The app, named Melonga, offers a comprehensive curriculum crafted by psychologists and urologists that incorporates alertness training, pelvic floor muscle exercises, mindfulness techniques, and cognitive-behavioral strategies. Participants learn to identify the “point of no return” before ejaculation, employing techniques like breathing, relaxation, and start-stop methods to manage arousal. The program also promotes open communication with partners and addresses negative thought patterns using cognitive behavioral therapy.

In a trial, eighty men were randomly chosen to either use the app or receive no structured intervention over the first 12 weeks. Among the 66 men who finished the study, those who used the app increased their vaginal ejaculation latency from an average of 61 seconds to 125 seconds, showing noticeable improvements after just four weeks. The control group exhibited minimal changes.

Men who engaged with the app reported benefits such as improved relationship dynamics and enhanced sexual enjoyment due to prolonged activity. Despite the potential causes of premature ejaculation, like prostate or thyroid issues, the study focused on healthy participants to ensure accurate results.

During a presentation at the European Urological Association Congress in London, Groeben announced significant findings.

“Healthcare professionals often favor medications over simpler solutions,” said Giorgio Russo from the University of Catania, Italy, who was not associated with the study. “During a quick appointment, pills seem like the simplest option, but they are not necessarily what patients need. The app acts as a digital doctor, empowering men and their partners to understand premature ejaculation better.”

Russo highlighted that the app, developed by the Netherlands-based health startup Prognois, had a “dramatic” effect, with 22% of participants no longer fulfilling the criteria for premature ejaculation after its usage. “Even a one- to two-minute improvement can yield significant benefits,” he stated.

“Anxiety is a major factor contributing to premature ejaculation,” Russo added. “Exercises such as Kegels can help manage anxiety and enhance muscle control.” While various similar apps exist, none have been rigorously tested in controlled environments. One key advantage of a digital solution is privacy. “Many individuals avoid seeking medical assistance due to the stigma associated with waiting in a doctor’s office,” Groeben stated.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

How Endurance Brain Cells Impact Your Running Stamina

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Neuroscience Research on Exercise

Your Limits When Exercising Can Be Mental

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Recent research has unveiled specific neurons in mice that enhance endurance following exercise, suggesting that similar cells may exist in humans. These findings could pave the way for targeted drugs and treatments to amplify exercise effects.

Traditionally, the understanding has been that brain changes from physical activity differ from those occurring in muscles. However, Nicholas Betley from the University of Pennsylvania contends that these brain changes regulate all physical responses.

To investigate further, Betley and his team observed neuronal activity in mice before, during, and after treadmill sessions, concentrating on neurons located in the ventromedial hypothalamus. Previous research revealed that developmental issues in this area hinder fitness improvements, a finding likely applicable to humans due to the structural consistency across mammals.

Post-exercise, the researchers noted that a specific group of neurons with SF1 receptors exhibited increased activity. These neurons, critical for brain development and metabolism, activated more significantly with each subsequent run. By day 8, approximately 53% of neurons were activated compared to under 32% on day 1. As Betley emphasizes, “Just as your muscles get stronger through exercise, your brain’s activity adapts as well.”

Utilizing optogenetics, which uses light to manipulate neuron activity, the researchers turned off these neurons in another mouse cohort trained on the treadmill five days weekly for three weeks. Observed post-session, neuron inhibition lasted an hour, followed by endurance tests.

The findings showed that these inhibited mice improved their running distances by around 400 meters, compared to control mice whose neuron activity remained unaffected.

While the exact function of these neurons remains ambiguous, team member Morgan Kindel, also at the University of Pennsylvania, indicates their likely role in fuel utilization. During endurance exercises, carbohydrates are depleted faster, necessitating a shift to fat for fuel. However, when these neurons were inhibited, mice utilized carbohydrates earlier, leading to performance limitations. They also discovered that inhibiting these neurons hindered the release of a muscle protein, PGC-1 alpha, which optimizes fuel use, while also facilitating energy replenishment and muscle recovery.

Although optogenetics isn’t applicable to humans due to its invasive nature, Betley suggests potential alternative interventions could be developed to target these neurons. “If we can identify methods, like supplements, to activate these neurons, we could significantly boost endurance,” he states.

In experiments boosting neuron activity instead of suppressing it, the mice exhibited extraordinary endurance, able to run over twice the distance of control subjects.

Such advancements may particularly benefit individuals struggling with exercise, including the elderly or stroke survivors, as noted by Betley.

Nevertheless, several challenges remain. First, the applicability of these findings to humans is not confirmed. There are concerns about potential side effects, highlighted by Thomas Barris at the University of Florida. These neurons seem to regulate cellular energy uptake, and overstimulation might pose risks like dangerously low blood sugar levels.

Even if safely activatable in humans, Betley believes it won’t serve as a stand-alone solution for health. “Exercise fosters a wide array of benefits: reducing depression and anxiety, enhancing cognitive function, improving cardiovascular health, and strengthening muscles,” he notes. However, stimulating these neurons alone won’t unlock all the positive outcomes associated with exercise.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Can Hormonal Implants Enhance Focus, Endurance, and Libido?

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What is the future of hormone patches?

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Can flashy technology directly influence the regulation of hormones within your body and mind? By the year 2035, a myriad of options had emerged on the market. Morning pick-me-ups? Do you stimulate desire when you settle down for the night? Or perhaps a period of immunity to discomfort? It’s all now within reach.

This innovation began in 2027, when daily treatments for severe surface and internal abrasions were developed within a living dressing. This dressing belonged to a class of engineered Biological Materials (ELM) that produce enzymes and antibiotics to expedite healing.

ELM is also utilized in the production of fermented beverage kombucha, inspired by the biofilm that can form in vinegar. Known as the “mother” layer, biofilms are living substances and symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast (Scoby). In vinegar, Scoby transforms alcohol into acetic acid, while in kombucha, it generates acetic acid and other compounds from sweetened tea. However, crafting unique synthetic scobies (sin-sobies) with gene-edited yeasts and bacteria can generate the essential enzymes, nutrients, and hormones. In 2021, a team from Imperial College London developed programmable Scobys using Baker’s yeast, easily modified to produce various compounds.

The first widely adopted Syn-Scoby was a medical material, stored in a dormant state within emergency kits and surgical units. When required, the material, now referred to as the Heal Me patch, is extracted and applied to the affected area. Once exposed to oxygen, the yeast is reactivated to convert its cellulose matrix into the necessary compounds. These include protein-degrading enzymes that swiftly dismantle dead and damaged tissues, alongside other enzymes that mitigate pain and inflammation, thereby accelerating recovery.

Following successful medical applications, Syn-Scobys were devised in the 2030s for numerous uses, extending from contaminant detection in the environment to delivering vital nutrients, enzymes, and hormones. Syn-Scobys replaced the bionic pancreas utilized by individuals with type 1 diabetes for insulin production and blood glucose control. Other variants emitted a luminescent protein upon identifying specific contaminants, metals, or pathogens in the surroundings.

Military researchers created patches that produce adrenaline and testosterone to alleviate pain and enhance aggression. However, Heal Me patches had direct access to the bloodstream via human wounds, exposing the compounds to digestive enzymes before absorption. To counter this, scientists engineered patches intended to be implanted in the thighs or abdomen. When soldiers required a boost, an activating enzyme was injected at the implant site. This initiating enzyme activates the Syn-Scoby within the patch and releases the desired compounds into the bloodstream.

Activate your customized living implants to enhance focus, aggression, stamina, and pain tolerance.

Customized living implants can be triggered as needed to amplify focus, aggression, endurance, and pain resistance. Recreational Synscobi is designed to generate stimulants, psychedelics, and libido enhancers.

The array of embedded patches is now available for immediate use. They secrete leptin to mimic solid leptin and inhibit ghrelin, which triggers hunger. Another variant allows live implants to produce semaglutide drugs such as Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Ozempic to suppress the urge to eat or drink, focusing on generating drugs like modafinil and oxiracetam that enhance cognitive function and memory retention.

For recreational purposes, psychoactive compounds like psilocybin are secreted, easily synthesized from gene-edited yeast. Users are filled with oxytocin and serotonin, fostering feelings of love, joy, and sexual desire. Dream Me facilitates controllable dreaming and stages of restful sleep, offering two options: Lucid and Black Out.

The most exclusive and sought-after implant was the Juve Me series, which generated various anti-aging compounds known as cytopathy and gathered senomorphic substances such as rapamycin and metformin that clear senescent cells and rejuvenate aged cells. Unlike many other ELMs, which have a temporary existence within the body before being metabolized, Juve Me implants were purposefully designed to be self-sustaining. It represents a symbiotic being living harmoniously within a fortunate individual, supplying nutrients essential for the implant’s longevity and vitality.

Hat Tips for Iain M. Banks’s culture The novels serve as inspiration for my symbiotic implants, which align with the bank’s concept of “Granding.”

Rowan Hooper is the podcast editor for New Scientist and author of How to Spend $1 Trillion: These are 10 global issues that can realistically be addressed. Follow him on Bluesky @rowhoop.bsky.social

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Source: www.newscientist.com

For the First Time, NASA’s Endurance Mission Measures Earth’s Bipolar Electric Field

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First hypothesized over 60 years ago Bipolar electric field Polar winds are the primary driver of a constant outflow of charged particles into space above the Earth’s poles. These electric fields lift charged particles in the upper atmosphere to higher altitudes than usual, and may have shaped the evolution of Earth in ways that are still unknown.

Collinson othersThey report that a potential drop of +0.55 ± 0.09 V exists between 250 km and 768 km due to the planetary electrostatic field, generated solely by the outward pressure of ionospheric electrons. They experimentally demonstrate that the Earth’s ambipolar field controls the structure of the polar ionosphere, increasing its scale height by 271%. Image courtesy of NASA.

Since the 1960s, spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles have detected streams of particles streaming from Earth’s atmosphere into space.

Theorists predicted these outflows, named them polar winds, and stimulated research to understand their causes.

Some outflow from the atmosphere was expected — intense, unobstructed sunlight should send some atmospheric particles escaping into space, like water vapor evaporating from a pot of water — but the observed polar winds were more puzzling.

Many of the particles inside were cold and showed no signs of heating, but they were moving at supersonic speeds.

“Something must be attracting these particles to the outer reaches of the atmosphere,” said Dr. Glynn Collinson, Endurance mission principal investigator and a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The electric fields, hypothesized to be generated at subatomic levels, would be incredibly weak and their effects would be expected to be felt only for distances of hundreds of miles.

For decades, detecting it has been beyond the limits of existing technology.

In 2016, Dr Collinson and his colleagues began inventing a new instrument that they thought would be suitable for measuring Earth’s bipolar magnetic field.

The team’s equipment and ideas were perfectly suited for a suborbital rocket flight launched from the Arctic.

The researchers named the mission “Antarctic Expedition,” in honor of the ship that carried Ernest Shackleton on his famous 1914 Antarctic voyage. Endurance.

They set course for Svalbard, a Norwegian island just a few hundred miles from the North Pole and home to the world’s northernmost rocket launch site.

“Svalbard is the only rocket launch site in the world that can fly through the polar winds and make the measurements we need,” said Dr Susie Ingber, an astrophysicist at the University of Leicester.

Endurance was launched on May 11, 2022, reaching an altitude of 768.03 kilometers (477.23 miles) and splashing down in the Greenland Sea 19 minutes later.

Over the 518.2 kilometres (322 miles) altitude where Endurance collected data, it measured a change in electrical potential of just 0.55 volts (V).

“Half a volt is almost meaningless – it’s about the strength of a watch battery – but it’s just right for describing polar winds,” Dr Collinson said.

Hydrogen ions, the most abundant type of particle in the polar wind, experience an outward force from this field that is 10.6 times stronger than gravity.

“That’s more than enough to counter gravity, in fact to launch you into space at supersonic speeds,” said Dr. Alex Grosser, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Endurance project scientist.

Heavier particles are also accelerated: an oxygen ion at the same altitude, immersed in this 0.5 volt electric field, loses half its mass.

In general, scientists have found that bipolar magnetic fields increase what’s called the scale height of the ionosphere by 271%, meaning the ionosphere remains denser up to higher altitudes than it would be without the bipolar magnetic field.

“It’s like a conveyor belt that lifts the atmosphere up into space,” Dr Collinson said.

The Endurance discovery has opened up many new avenues of exploration.

The polarity field, as a fundamental energy field of the Earth alongside gravity and magnetism, may have continually shaped the evolution of the atmosphere in ways that we are only now beginning to explore.

Because it is generated by the internal dynamics of the atmosphere, similar electric fields are expected to exist on other planets, including Venus and Mars.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have a bipolar magnetic field, and now that we’ve finally measured it we can start to learn how it has shaped our planet and other planets over time,” Dr Collinson said.

Team result Published in a journal Nature.

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G.A. Collinson others2024. Earth’s bipolar electrostatic field and its role in the escape of ions into space. Nature 632, 1021-1025;doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07480-3

This article is a version of a press release from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Source: www.sci.news

New insights uncovered by scientists on the transformative effects of endurance training on muscles

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Researchers at the University of Basel have conducted a study on muscle adaptations in mice and discovered that endurance training leads to significant muscle remodeling. This is evident in the differential gene expression in trained muscles compared to untrained muscles, with epigenetic changes playing a crucial role in these adaptations. Trained muscles become more efficient and resilient, allowing for improved performance over time. The findings shed new light on the mechanisms behind these muscle adaptations.

Endurance training comes with numerous benefits. Regular exercise not only enhances overall fitness and health but also brings about substantial changes in muscle structure. This results in decreased muscle fatigue, increased energy production, and optimized oxygen usage. The recent experiments conducted by researchers at the University of Basel, using mice as subjects, have further elucidated these muscle changes.

Professor Christoph Handsin, who has extensive experience in muscle biology research at the Biozentrum University of Basel, explains that it is well-known that muscles adapt to physical activity. The goal of their study was to gain a deeper understanding of the processes occurring in muscles during athletic training. The researchers found that training status is reflected in gene expression.

Comparing untrained and trained mice, Handsin’s team examined the changes in gene expression in response to exercise. Surprisingly, they discovered that a relatively small number of around 250 genes were altered in trained resting muscles compared to untrained muscles. However, after intense exercise, approximately 1,800 to 2,500 genes were regulated. The response of specific genes and the degree of regulation depended largely on the training condition.

Untrained muscles activated inflammatory genes in response to endurance training, which could lead to muscle soreness from small injuries. In contrast, trained muscles exhibited increased activity in genes that protect and support muscle function, allowing them to respond differently to exercise stress. Trained muscles were more efficient and resilient, enabling them to handle physical loads better.

The researchers found that epigenetic modifications, chemical tags in the genome, played a crucial role in shaping muscle fitness. Epigenetic patterns determine whether genes are turned on or off, and the patterns differed significantly between untrained and trained muscles. The modifications affected important genes that control the expression of numerous other genes, ultimately activating a distinct program in trained muscles compared to untrained muscles.

These epigenetic patterns determine how muscles respond to training. Chronic endurance training induces short and long-term changes in the epigenetic patterns of muscles. Trained muscles are primed for long-term training due to these patterns and exhibit faster reactions and improved efficiency. With each training session, muscular endurance improves.

The next step for researchers is to determine whether these findings in mice also apply to humans. Biomarkers that reflect training progress can be used to enhance training efficiency in competitive sports. Additionally, understanding how healthy muscles function is crucial for developing innovative treatments for muscle wasting associated with aging and disease.

In conclusion, the study conducted by researchers at the University of Basel has unveiled the mechanisms through which muscles adapt to regular endurance training in mice. The insights gained from these findings may have implications for human performance and health. Furthermore, understanding muscle function can aid in the development of treatments for muscle-related conditions.

Source: scitechdaily.com