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This could be helpful in a variety of muscle wasting conditions. There is currently no specific treatment other than exercise to stop muscle atrophy caused by these conditions.
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Summary This invention provides a deep heat treatment to increase muscle mitochondria. Skeletal muscle constitutes approximately 40 -50% of the body mass in humans. During periods of decreased loading such as immobilization, spaceflight, pathological conditions (cancer or sepsis)) and aging skeletal muscle mass is decreased as cellular signaling shifts from protein synthesis to those inducing protein breakdown. This leads to decreases in muscle size (atrophy). Loss of muscle mass directly affects physical and function work capacity and effectively decreases quality of life and can lead to further immobility and even death. Our inventor has discovered that deep muscle heating induced by shortwave diathermy treatment is capable of increasing muscle mitochondrial capacity (similar to that observed by exercise) sufficient to stop muscle atrophy induced by muscle disuse. This could be helpful in a variety of muscle wasting conditions caused by disuse, immobilization, aging, spaceflight and cancer. There is currently no specific treatment other than exercise to stop muscle atrophy caused by these conditions.