In vivo mitochondrial ATP production is improved in older adult skeletal muscle after a single dose of elamipretide in a randomized trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied SS-31 (Elamipretide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Loss of mitochondrial function contributes to fatigue, exercise intolerance and muscle weakness, and is a key factor in the disability that develops with age and a wide variety of chronic disorders.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 39 subjects taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

The subjects were allocated by chance, so the SS-31 (Elamipretide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the subjects and researchers unaware of who received SS-31 (Elamipretide).

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with SS-31 (Elamipretide) could be set against what happens without it.

Non-invasive magnetic resonance and optical spectroscopy provided measures of mitochondrial capacity (ATPmax) with exercise and mitochondrial coupling (ATP supply per O2 uptake; P/O) at rest.

The researchers measured volitional fatigue resistance by force-time integral over repetitive muscle contractions.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Muscle, Skeletal, Oligopeptides, Adenosine Triphosphate, Mitochondria, Muscle, Muscle Contraction, Exercise and Muscle Fatigue.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of SS-31 (Elamipretide) in 39 subjects.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2021 (PloS one), a journal based in United States.

More context: the SS-31 (Elamipretide) compound page, all human trials.