An international team of scientists has isolated a natural hormone or chemical messenger in muscle cells that triggers some of the important health benefits of exercise.

The scientists have named it “irisin”, after the Greek messenger goddess, and believe it is a promising candidate for developing drugs to treat diabetes, obesity and maybe even cancer.

Senior author Dr Bruce Spiegelman, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues, write about their findings in the January 11th online issue of Nature.

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First author Dr Pontus Bostrom, a postdoctoral fellow who works with Spiegelman in his lab conclude: “Irisin could be therapeutic for human metabolic disease and other disorders that are improved with exercise.”