Research

Hormonal

Myostatin acts as a negative regulator of muscle hypertrophy and cardiac pathological hypertrophy, and its inhibition or reduction through exercise can promote muscle growth and protect against certain cardiac dysfunctions.

Consistent exercise naturally lowers myostatin, a protein that limits muscle growth. This is one reason why regular resistance training is effective for building muscle.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Consistent exercise reduces myostatin levels, and genetic deletion or pharmacological inhibition of myostatin enhances skeletal muscle hypertrophy... myostatin attenuates cardiac pathological hypertrophy in rats and in isolated cardiomyocytes.
Julia A. Pinette et al. · Circulation Research · 2025

Why this rating

The paper cites animal models and in vitro studies, with some conflicting data on clinical translation.

Source

Skeletal Muscle as a Mediator of Interorgan Crosstalk During Exercise: Implications for Aging and Obesity

Julia A. Pinette et al. · Circulation Research · 2025

DOI 10.1161/circresaha.124.325614

narrative_reviewCited 20×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →