Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1488451
L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 79 straw, or your finger, or your back, and bend it the same way, back and forth, for eight straight hours. No, wait. Don't do that. It turns out that after eight hours of RMS, the cells not only visibly changed, but many of the intercellular connections were damaged or broken, production of noxious cytokines increased, and the rate of cell death (apoptosis) increased by 30 percent—something to think about the next time someone with a mechanically repetitive job comes to see you. But, as a clickbait headline might read, you won't believe what happened next! Those same researchers took the damaged cell cultures and changed their mechanical environment, adding the combined elements of compression, stretch, and shear. Basically, they added the three necessary components of what we might, by any other name, call a myofascial release (MFR). They chose an application interval of 60 seconds—a totally random choice, the researchers tell me. And that's when the astonishing thing happened. It had a regenerative effect on the cells. In fact, it restored the apoptosis rate to normal, as it did the cell morphology (which is the scientific word for shape). The takeaway is that 60 seconds of MFR can undo the damage from eight hours of repetitive motion—on the cellular level at least. More recently, Bo Ri Seo at Harvard's Wys Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering took this a step further. 5 She and her team created a sophisticated, tunable, soft robotic "finger" capable of delivering a consistent compression to the leg muscles of mice. They were able to show that this "robotic massage" not only increased the speed with which neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) were removed from the damaged tissue, but also further removed inf lammatory cytokines generated by these neutrophils. That further enhances the regeneration of muscle fibers and shows a very clear connection between mechanical stimulation and immune function. 4. Kate Meltzer et al., "In Vitro Modeling of Repetitive Motion Injury and Myofascial Release," Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 14, no. 2 (April 2010): 162–71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2010.01.002. 5. Bo Ri Seo et al., "Skeletal Muscle Regeneration with Robotic Actuation-Mediated Clearance of Neutrophils," Science Translational Medicine 13, no. 614 (October 2021): https:// doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abe8868. 6. Justin Crane, "Massage Therapy Attenuates Infl ammatory Signaling after Exercise-induced Muscle Damage," Science Translational Medicine 4, no. 119 (February 2012): 119ra13, https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.3002882. David Lesondak is an Allied Health member in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and is board- certifi ed in structural integration. He is the author of Fascia: What It Is and Why is Matters, editor of Fascia, Function, and Medical Applications, and host of the podcast BodyTalk. Learn more at davidlesondak.com. L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 79 PODCAST: "BODYTALK WITH DAVID LESONDAK: OF MICE AND MASSAGE WITH DR. BO RI SEO" 1. Open your camera 2. Scan the code 3. Tap on notification 4. Listen! ONTO THE TABLE Back in the macro world, 11 young men pushed themselves to exhaustion via heavy exercise. They did this to measure the effects of post-exercise massage. 6 The muscle chosen for this study was the vastus lateralis. Tissue biopsies were taken before exercise, after a 10-minute massage, and 2.5 hours later. The result? The massage induced mechanotransduction in a number of markers, including reduction of inf lammatory cytokines, formation of new mitochrondria (our cellular batteries), and focal adhesion kinase (FAK). FAK is essential to the process of phosphorylation (cellular sugar metabolism, energy storage, and release) and regulates and mediates other intercellular signals too. So, the next time someone gets off your table and tells you they feel great all the way down to their bones, you can smile and tell them it actually goes a little deeper than that. Notes 1. Nuray Turan and Türkinaz Atabek Aşt, "The Effect of Abdominal Massage on Constipation and Quality of Life," Gastroenterology Nursing 39, no. 1 (January/February 2016): 48–59, https:// doi.org/10.1097/SGA.0000000000000202. 2. Thomas Burkholder, "Mechanotransduction in Skeletal Muscle," Frontiers in Bioscience– Landmark 12, no. 1 (January 2007): 174–91, https:// doi.org/10.2741/2057; Daniel Tschumperlin, "Mechanotransduction," Comprehensive Physiology 1, no. 2 (April 2011): 1057–73, https://doi.org/10.1002/cphy.c100016. 3. Z. Sun, S. S. Guo, and R. Fässler, "Integrin- Mediated Mechanotransduction," Journal of Cell Biology 215, no. 4 (November 2016): 445–56, https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201609037. TAKEAWAY: Researchers used compression, stretch, and shear to have a regenerative effect on the mechanical environment of damaged cell cultures.