Eating This Can Stimulate Muscle Cells

By the time October comes around we start to see an abundance of a popular orange squash that actually has a lot more benefits than merely being used to make lanterns or spice your coffee.

The humble pumpkin packs a powerful nutritional punch and whilst its not a very popular choice of ingredients in most people’s food recipes, there seems to be a lot of research showing that it should be reconsidered.

Pumpkins are rich in lutein, which is a carotenoid that helps to protect your eyes from the damaging components of sunlight. That’s a nice little benefit but the main benefit we’re here for is that it’s actually well-known for its ability to stimulate muscle cells.

Lutein boosts levels of AMPK, which is an enzyme that stimulates muscle cells to develop when they’re running low on energy. An animal study that was published in the journal Plos One, found that lab rats covered twice as many kilometres after being fed a combination of lutein and milk than those that were only fed milk. The researchers conducting the study also saw heightened activity in the enzyme CPT1, which helps your mitochondria to burn fat.

Building muscle is hard enough so you need all the help you can get and in doing so not only will you get a boost to your muscle building, but it will also add something new to your diet at the same time. As it’s in season, if this doesn’t give you extra reasons to add more pumpkin into your diet then nothing will!