Ο καθηγητής Wackerhage (School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich)  είναι μοριακός φυσιολόγος της άσκησης και έχει δημοσιεύσει πολλά εγχειρίδια στον τομέα αυτό. Είναι επικεφαλής της ομάδας Βιολογίας της Άσκησης, η οποία ενδιαφέρεται γενικά για τους μοριακούς μηχανισμούς με τους οποίους η άσκηση βελτιώνει την απόδοση, τη φυσική κατάσταση και την υγεία.

Professor Wackerhage (School of Medicine and Health, Technical University of Munich) is a molecular exercise physiologist and has published many textbooks in this field. He leads the Exercise Biology group, which is generally interested in the molecular mechanisms by which exercise improves performance, fitness, and health.

Τίτλοι Ομιλιών / Keynote Speeches:

1. Taurine: effects on exercise, health, and ageing
2. Does a hypertrophying muscle reprogram its metabolism like a cancer cell and does this explain the anti-diabetes and anti-obesity effects of muscle hypertrophy?
3. Contributions of the Cologne school to lactate testing and the simulation of human energy metabolism

Taurine: effects on exercise, health, and ageing

Taurine is an amino acid that contains an amino (NH₂) group, a sulfonate (SO₃) group and there are two carbons in-between these groups. As there is no tRNA for taurine and as taurine lacks a carboxyl (COOH) group, taurine is not used for protein synthesis. In the 1980s, studies in cats revealed that cats do synthesize no/little taurine (humans can synthesize taurine) and that a lack of dietary taurine, as in early cat foods, leads to diseases such as blindness and heart failure. This demonstrated that sufficiently high taurine levels are essential for human health. In a study where we were involved, we found that taurine supplementation extends the lifespan of worms and mice and makes mice and apes live healthier for longer. In humans, we find that low taurine levels are associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus and other phenotypes. We also observed that taurine blood levels increase during a graded exercise to exhaustion. Moreover, some studies suggest that taurine supplementation may have effects on exercise capacity. The EFSA considers a taurine uptake of up to 6 g/day as safe and there are no known adverse effects. We have now started a human taurine intervention trial to find out whether taurine supplementation delays human ageing and affects exercise-related variables.

Does a hypertrophying muscle reprogram its metabolism like a cancer cell and does this explain the anti-diabetes and anti-obesity effects of muscle hypertrophy? 

One hundred years ago, in 1924, Otto Warburg asked “How does the metabolism of a growing tissue differ from that of a non-growing tissue?” His team found that tumours take up more glucose and release a fraction of it as lactate in the presence of oxygen. Today this metabolic reprogramming is known as the Warburg effect. One aim is to generate glycolytic intermediates and other metabolites as substrates for anabolic reactions such as nucleotide-DNA/RNA synthesis and non-essential amino acid-protein synthesis. In our own research, we found that a hypertrophying muscle similarly reprograms its metabolism, that it directs more glucose into anabolic reactions and that e.g., the serine biosynthesis pathway limits muscle hypertrophy. We now also investigate whether this metabolic reprogramming is the mechanism that explains why the stimulation of skeletal muscle hypertrophy typically has anti-obesity and anti-diabetes effects.

Contributions of the Cologne school to lactate testing and the simulation of human energy metabolism

Today, researchers, practitioners, and physicians measure the concentration of lactate during a graded exercise test to determine thresholds related to the maximal lactate steady state (maxLass) as a sensitive measure of endurance capacity. In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of Cologne-based researchers around Wildor Hollmann, Alois Mader, and Hermann Heck developed the methodology for systematic lactate testing and introduced a 4 mmol^.L⁻¹ lactate threshold. Later, especially Hermann Heck developed the concept of the maxLass, and Alois Mader designed a mathematical model of human energy metabolism during exercise. Unfortunately, the Cologne group published much of their work in German and so some contributions are under-appreciated internationally. In this talk, I will cover how the Cologne group emerged and how it contributed to lactate and exercise physiology research. I will also focus on the concept of the ν_La.max which is an under-researched variable that is trainable, which affects the exercise intensity-lactate relationship, and which can be measured in principle.