The study, which involved rodents and humans, discovered that after weight training, muscles produce and release tiny droplets of genetic material that can travel to fat cells.
The results contribute to the growing body of scientific evidence that resistance training has unique fat-loss benefits.
Lifting weights, or working against our body weight as we perform push-ups, lunges, and chair dips, will significantly increase the size and strength of our musculature.
In recent studies, resistance training increased energy expenditure and fat metabolism for at least 24 hours in young women, obese men, and athletes.
Similarly, in a study I covered earlier this month, individuals who sporadically lifted weights had a significantly lower likelihood of becoming obese than those who never lifted.
Muscle is metabolically active and consumes calories, so increasing muscle mass through resistance training should increase energy expenditure.
Adding muscle mass, however, requires time and repetition, whereas some of the metabolic effects of weight training on fat depots appear to occur .
For years, the researchers had studied muscle health, but their interest in other tissues, particularly adipose, had grown.
Experiments indicate that after exercise, muscles, for example, release a cascade of hormones and other proteins that enter the bloodstream.
Vesicles were once thought to be microscopic garbage sacks filled with cellular debris, but it is now known that they contain active, healthy genetic material and other substances.
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