Research

Hormonal

Twelve weeks of combined endurance and strength training in humans does not increase circulating irisin levels and may actually reduce them, despite increasing muscle FNDC5 mRNA expression.

If you are training to boost irisin for fat loss, this 12-week study suggests it won't work as expected; irisin levels actually decreased. However, your muscle genes (PGC1A and FNDC5) did upregulate. Focus on the direct metabolic benefits of exercise rather than expecting a specific hormonal spike in irisin.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
We observed no enhancing effect of long-term training on circulating irisin levels, and little or no effect of training on browning of subcutaneous white adipose tissue in humans.
Frode Norheim et al. · FEBS Journal · 2013

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial with 26 participants, using two different ELISA kits to confirm findings, reducing assay-specific artifact risk.

Source

The effects of acute and chronic exercise on <scp>PGC</scp>‐1α, irisin and browning of subcutaneous adipose tissue in humans

Frode Norheim et al. · FEBS Journal · 2013

DOI 10.1111/febs.12619

rct · n=26Cited 559×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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