Eric Nataf

Biography

Eric Nataf is a Paris-based radiologist specializing in fertility and osteoarticular imaging. His work with athletes has led him to take an interest in the evolution of human muscle over the course of a lifetime. He has been a regular columnist for several magazines and has taken part in editing the Larousse Memo, as well as the Larousse medical encyclopedic dictionary. His first novel, Autobiographie d’un virus (2004) won the Prix de l’université d’Artois. In 2018, he published Le fils caché de la Lune. Eric is also an avid photographer, on the lookout for the details of our daily lives and the traces of our civilization.

Conference: Is muscle the future of mankind?

Muscle is a hybrid tissue. As well as being a vital component of our locomotor system, it is permanently connected to our nervous system, of which it is the “sword arm”. Our muscles keep us upright, oppose gravity and propel us. They are also connected to the skeleton, which can be considered from an evolutionary point of view as ancient ossified muscle tissue. Reflecting the health of our DNA, of which they are the inverted mirror, muscles also constitute the bulk of our protein reserves. However, over time, our muscular system also ages: by the age of 70, we have lost 50% of our muscular capital. This loss of muscle mass, when it exceeds a certain threshold, is known as “sarcopenia”. Falls, dependency, societal costs… the consequences of sarcopenia are manifold. Even stronger! Muscles are directly connected to the motor neurons of the central nervous system. Sarcopenia leads to their degeneration, and thus to a decline in cognitive function. Maintaining your muscles means toning up your brain. Maintaining the musculoskeletal system is also one of sapiens’ primary concerns when living in space for extended periods. We all remember those videos of astronauts running on treadmills for hours on end to keep their muscle mass afloat and prevent their skeleton from crumbling to powder on their return to earth. It’s never been tried, but it’s likely that a human raised in space, where gravity differs, would be very different from us. A rubbery body, a huge head because the fontanelles don’t close, muscles reduced to a rough shape… Muscles may be rare on the moon or aboard the International Space Station, but on earth, they could well be the future of mankind.