Research
Hormonal
IL-6 acts as a myokine with dual roles: it enhances glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity during exercise, but chronic overproduction (e.g., in Duchenne muscular dystrophy) contributes to muscle degeneration and inflammation.
IL-6 is a complex myokine. During exercise, it helps your muscles use glucose and fat efficiently. However, in diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy, too much IL-6 causes damage. Inhibiting IL-6 in these specific disease contexts can improve muscle health, highlighting that IL-6's effect depends entirely on the physiological context.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
IL-6 has an insulin-like effect on glucose metabolism. IL-6 increases insulin-stimulated glucose disposal in humans as well as glucose uptake and fatty acid oxidation in vitro... On the other hand, the role of IL-6 on muscle atrophy seems to be a negative effect rather than a beneficial effect. IL-6 is overproduced in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and in muscles of the mdx animal model. Inhibition of IL-6 activity... attenuates the dystrophic phenotype, severe muscle degeneration, inflammation, as well as accumulation of non-functional fat and fibrotic tissues.
Why this rating
Well-established role in glucose metabolism and clear pathological role in DMD models.
Source
Role of Myokines in Regulating Skeletal Muscle Mass and Function
Jong Han Lee et al. · Frontiers in Physiology · 2019
DOI 10.3389/fphys.2019.00042
narrative_reviewCited 425×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Myostatin acts as a negative regulator of skeletal muscle mass by inhibiting protein synthesis and promoting degradation; blocking myostatin signaling increases muscle mass in animal models but has failed to show clinical efficacy in elevating muscle strength in human muscular dystrophy trials.Moderate
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- Decorin is a myokine that directly binds to and inactivates myostatin, thereby promoting muscle growth by inhibiting myostatin's anti-myogenic effects and increasing pro-myogenic factors like Mighty and Myod1.Moderate
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