Research

Hormonal

Immobilization significantly reduces the phosphorylation of mTOR at 48 hours, indicating early suppression of anabolic signaling, which correlates with the down-regulation of PGC-1alpha and mitochondrial biogenesis.

Early in immobilization, your body's primary anabolic signaling (mTOR) is suppressed, which likely contributes to the shutdown of mitochondrial function. This suggests that early nutritional or pharmacological interventions targeting mTOR might be most effective in preserving metabolic health during the first few days of inactivity.

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mTOR phosphorylation decreased significantly following 48 H of immobilization but not 14 D... PGC-1a, the master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis, was down-regulated at both 48 H and 14 D along with dozens of downstream PGC-1a targets
Arkan Abadi et al. · PLoS ONE · 2009

Why this rating

Measured via Western blotting in the same cohort.

Source

Limb Immobilization Induces a Coordinate Down-Regulation of Mitochondrial and Other Metabolic Pathways in Men and Women

Arkan Abadi et al. · PLoS ONE · 2009

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0006518

rct · n=24Cited 187×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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