Muscle Loss in Old Age Linked to Fewer Nerve Signals

BBC News reports that a Manchester Metropolitan University research team working with scientists from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and the University of Manchester may have figured out why there is a natural loss of muscle in the legs as older people age. In tests on 168 men, the researchers found that nerves controlling the legs decreased by nearly 30 percent by age 75. This made muscles essentially "waste away." As human beings get older, their leg muscles become smaller and weaker, resulting in problems with such everyday movements as getting out of a chair or walking up a flight of stairs. Professor Jamie McPhee from Manchester Metropolitan University said, "The muscles need to receive a proper signal from the nervous system to tell them to contract, so we can move around." The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Physiology .