The Study
Muscle Weakness and the Irisin–BDNF and Oxidative Stress Axis in the 60‐Day Pseudorandomised Controlled AGBRESA Bed Rest Study
This study is like a fair test where some people got a special machine to help their muscles while lying in bed, and others didn’t. We can say the machine helped a little with how fast muscles relax, but we can’t say it stopped muscle weakness or fixed everything. The links between certain body chemicals and muscle health are just clues — not proof they cause anything.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Scientists made people lie in bed for 60 days to mimic spaceflight, and spun some of them in a circle every day to see if it helped their muscles.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 568 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Even though spinning helped some tiny muscle speed changes, it didn’t stop the big loss of strength — so it’s not enough alone to protect muscles from long bed rest.
- 2Lying in bed made everyone weaker — women lost more strength than men.
- 3Spinning helped a little: it reduced muscle twitch speed changes in the thigh and saved 25% of calf muscle twitch strength compared to 48% loss in non-spun people.
- 4But it didn’t stop overall strength loss.
- 5Oxidative stress didn’t increase, and people with higher irisin/BDNF had less muscle damage markers.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle
Year
2026
Authors
A. Bosutti, B. Ganse, Edwin Mulder, Markus Gruber, María Venegas-Carro, Jochen Zange, J. Rittweger, M. Eggelbusch, R. Wüst, P. Hendrickse, Hans Degens
Related Content
Claims (8)
Exposure to artificial gravity preserves muscle twitch strength in the calf muscles more than in the thigh muscles, due to differences in how much mechanical force each muscle group experiences during centrifugation.
Sixty days of bed rest does not change levels of oxidative stress markers in the blood or muscle tissue.
In people undergoing prolonged bed rest, higher levels of irisin and BDNF in the blood are linked to lower levels of oxidative stress markers and less damage at the connections between nerves and muscles.
Sixty days of bed rest results in faster muscle contraction and relaxation in the quadriceps and calf muscles, reflecting a change in muscle contractile speed that is not due to changes in muscle fiber type.
Sixty days of bed rest reduces maximum knee strength in both men and women, with women losing more strength than men in both knee extension and flexion.
Daily 30-minute exposure to artificial gravity generated by centrifugation reduces the speed increase in knee extensor muscle twitches and lessens the loss of peak torque in plantar flexor muscles during bed rest, but does not stop the reduction in maximal voluntary muscle strength.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.