International Business Department           Liu Bojia           March 25, 2023

  As we age, middle-aged and older people experience a quiet loss of muscle mass and weakening of muscle strength. after the age of 30, muscle mass decreases at a rate of 3 to 8 per cent per year; after the age of 65, the rate of muscle decay further accelerates to 6 to 15 per cent. Some people even develop sarcopenia (also known as muscle wasting syndrome), which results in impaired physical activity.

  Sarcopenia is one of the most important reasons why elderly people gradually find it difficult to take care of themselves in their daily lives and their quality of life decreases. Epidemiological surveys in recent years have shown that the prevalence of sarcopenia in the Chinese population aged 60 and above ranges from 5.7% to 23.9%, with significant differences in prevalence rates between different regions and genders.

  Although there are no drugs available to prevent or treat sarcopenia caused by aging, dietary and nutritional supplementation can effectively help us reduce muscle loss.

  Recently, researchers from the National University of Singapore School of Medicine, the Nestlé Research Institute in Switzerland, and other institutions have found that fenugreek (trigonelline), a natural phytochemical contained in coffee beans, is important for building muscle strength and reducing sarcopenia in old age.

  The study was published in Nature Metabolism, a subseries of Nature. In the paper, the researchers point out that there are two hallmark events in the development of sarcopenia: one is the dysfunction of the cell's mitochondria, which can be simply understood as an underproduction of the factories responsible for making energy in muscle cells; the other is a decrease in the level of the cell's coenzyme molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide ( ^NAD+ ), a molecule that plays a key role in energy metabolism and affects, both directly and indirectly, a number of cellular functions directly and indirectly.

  Some previous studies have suggested that trying to increase ^NAD+levels could be a strategy for slowing down ag ing. There are a number of substances in the diet that can help boost ^NAD+, such as levotryptophan, one of the essential amino acids, and vitamin B3 (also known as niacin), which can be produced as an ^NAD+ precursor molecule when taken into the body.

  And in this new study, the scientists found that fenugreek is actually an ^NAD+precursor moleculeas well, and that fenugreek levels correlate with ^NAD+levels, muscle function, and mitochondrial metabolism in the case of sarcopenia.

  The researchers analysed blood samples from patients with sarcopenia by targeted metabolomics, and found that several other common ^NAD+ precursor molecules were not significantly altered in patients with sarcopenia against data from healthy populations; however, fenugreek concentrations within the patients' circulation were significantly lower.

  In several animal studies, the researchers confirmed that fenugreek supplementation improves mitochondrial function, and that the muscle wasting that accompanies aging improves, increasing muscle strength in older male m ice.

  The paper concludes, "This new study reveals an association between fenugreek and human muscle health through clinical analyses; it has been shown through preclinical experiments that fenugreek, as a ^NAD+ precursor, improves mitochondrial function, enhances muscle strength, and prevents weakening with age."

  It's worth noting that in addition to helping to maintain muscle health, several other studies have found that fenugreek helps to maintain nerve cell function, and may even improve the effects of memory and spatial learning abilities in animals. Considering that both muscles and the brain tend to decline with aging, supplementing with fenugreek may be able to fight aging in more ways than one.

  So, is it possible that middle-aged and elderly people who drink more coffee can replenish their fenugreek and avoid s arcopenia?

  The researchers also considered various potential routes for fenugreek supplementation in this paper, but an analysis of clinical data on patients with sarcopenia showed that the amount of coffee consumed on a daily basis did not seem to correlate with the level of fenugreek in the patient's body, but rather it was the intake of folic acid and dietary fibre that correlated with the level of fenugreek in the body. The researchers analysed that this may be due to the fact that gut flora metabolism can also produce fenugreek, and that there is a complex relationship between diet, gut flora and muscle health that needs to be further elucidated in subsequent studies.