Theodore Garland

Dehydration makes elite mice exercise more, not less. What this means for humans

tomwt — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 18:07:43 +0000

Dehydration makes elite mice exercise more, not less. What this means for humans tomwt Mon, 11/17/2025 - 10:07 More CNAS in the Media John Anderer | Study Finds November 10, 2025

STUDY FINDS - Common sense tells us that when the body is dehydrated, physical performance declines. Athletes and coaches have long known that even modest fluid loss can hurt endurance and speed. However, research focusing on laboratory mice has uncovered a puzzling exception. The fittest animals actually ran more, not less, when deprived of water for 24 hours.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, tested what happens when mice go without water while given free access to running wheels. They used two types of mice. Normal control mice, as well as “High Runner” mice that had been selectively bred for decades to run about three times more than regular mice. When water bottles were removed for 24 hours, both groups lost roughly 20% of their body weight. On the other hand, their exercise responses couldn’t have been more different.

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Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Theodore Garland

Cutting Calories May Not Impact Your Exercise Performance After All

tomwt — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 15:32:27 +0000

Cutting Calories May Not Impact Your Exercise Performance After All tomwt Wed, 08/28/2024 - 08:32 More CNAS in the Media David Nield | ScienceAlert August 22, 2024

ScienceAlert - A new mouse study challenges conventional wisdom that cutting down on calories can lead to a drop in exercise performance. Even when dieting, it seems mammalian bodies are able and willing to keep up previous activity levels.

Researchers looked at mice that spent time on a treadmill as their diets were cut down. These lab tests are easier to get fixed figures from, compared to real-world conditions, where our relationships to dieting and exercise are often irregular and hard to quantify.

After three weeks of baseline measurements, the team led by researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) cut down the calories given to the mice by 20 percent for one week, and then by 40 percent the following week. They included normal mice as well as 'high-runner' mice bred to enjoy running.

"Voluntary exercise [in mice] was remarkably resistant to reducing the amount of food by 20 percent and even by 40 percent," says biologist Theodore Garland Jr from UCR. "They just kept running."

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Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Theodore Garland

Super athletic mice prove cutting extra calories shouldn’t impact exercise

tomwt — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:16:44 +0000

Super athletic mice prove cutting extra calories shouldn’t impact exercise tomwt Wed, 08/14/2024 - 09:16 More CNAS in the Media Chris Melore | StudyFinds August 12, 2024

STUDYFINDS - For scientists, mice often serve as stand-ins for humans. So, what happens when these tiny test subjects are bred to be Olympic-level athletes? Researchers from the University of California-Riverside are shedding light on how exceptionally active animals respond to food and calorie restrictions, with surprising implications for our understanding of diet, exercise, and metabolism.

For over six decades, scientists have been breeding “High Runner” (HR) mice – the rodent equivalent of elite athletes – that voluntarily run nearly three times as much as normal mice. When researchers decided to test how these super-fit mice would respond to severe food restrictions, the results, published in Physiology & Behavior, were nothing short of astonishing.

These mice maintained their incredible running regimens and body weights even when their food was cut by 20%, and they only showed modest changes when food was slashed by 40%. This resilience in the face of drastic calorie reduction flies in the face of conventional wisdom about energy balance and weight loss.

“People often lose about 4% of their body mass when they’re dieting. That’s in the same range as these mice,” says UCR biologist and corresponding study author Theodore Garland, Jr., in a media release.

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Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Theodore Garland

Oral Antibiotics May Cause Reduction in Exercise

tomwt — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 15:14:34 +0000

Oral Antibiotics May Cause Reduction in Exercise tomwt Fri, 06/03/2022 - 08:14 More CNAS in the Media Marina Zhang | The Epoch Times June 01, 2022

THE EPOCH TIMES - A study by the University of California (UCR) suggests that broad-spectrum oral antibiotics may reduce motivation and endurance for voluntary exercise in humans, with the effects magnified in high-exercise cohorts.

“We believed an animal’s collection of gut bacteria, its microbiome, would affect digestive processes and muscle function, as well as motivation for various behaviors, including exercise,” said Theodore Garland, UCR physiologist on June 1.

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Theodore Garland

Your nose could be the key to getting fit, a study in mice suggests

Site Factory admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 20:22:33 +0000

Your nose could be the key to getting fit, a study in mice suggests Site Factory admin Thu, 12/03/2020 - 12:22 More CNAS in the Media Amy Barrett | BBC Science Focus Magazine December 02, 2020

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS - A whiff of your gym bag might make you wince, but your nose could be the key to getting fit. New research in mice suggests there is a link between doing voluntary exercise and the expression of genes that relate to scent perception.

Rodents are used in scientific research for various reasons: they’re small, easy to keep, reproduce quickly and are thought to share genetic and behavioural characteristics with humans.

In a study by Sachiko Haga-Yamanaka and colleagues at the University of California, Riverside, mice were placed on a running wheel. “Voluntary wheel running (VWR) is an intrinsically motivated and naturally rewarding behaviour [for mice], and even wild mice run on a wheel placed in nature,” wrote the researchers in their paper.

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Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology

Sachiko Haga-Yamanaka

Theodore Garland

Need motivation to exercise? Olfaction is a primal motivator

ilseu — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:37:19 +0000

Need motivation to exercise? Olfaction is a primal motivator ilseu Tue, 12/01/2020 - 16:37 More CNAS in the Media Christopher Bergland | Psychology Today November 28, 2020

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY - Olfaction may play an important role in the motivation to seek voluntary exercise, according to a new study. The University of California, Riverside (UCR) researchers speculate that "individual differences of exercise habit may be accounted for by a differentiated perception of specific smells."

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Theodore Garland

Sachiko Haga-Yamanaka