The AMPK Advantage
Increase AMPK to get lean and muscular much easier. It might even help you live a lot longer. Info here.
AMPK is an amazing enzyme. It's found in every cell and serves as the body's master regulating switch, determining how fat you'll be and even how long you'll live.
Here are a few of the bad things that could happen if you're in short supply of AMPK or have an AMPK signaling deficit:
- Abdominal obesity
- Loss in insulin sensitivity
- Excess glucose
- Chronic inflammation
- High triglycerides and LDL
- Mitochondrial dysfunction
- Accumulation of cellular debris
- Increased cellular stress
- Unfavorable gene expression
- Heart failure
- Cancer
54% Fewer Cancers
AMPK has long been of interest to people who study the chemistry of lifting and body composition because it can de-sensitize fat cells to insulin's effect so they can't store nutrients as easily. Instead, muscles get bigger while fat stores get smaller. But a recent study came out appraising the impact of a prescription drug's AMPK-modulating effects on cancer.
In one of the largest studies of its kind, a group of scientists pored over the 10-year case histories of 8,000 type II diabetics who'd been taking a drug (metformin) to lower blood sugar. They found that users had an incredible 54% lower incidence of all cancers compared to the general population.
Not only did the glucose-disposal agent exhibit a preventative effect, but users who developed cancer had a much higher survival rate. The earlier they started using the drug, the longer they continued to fight off cancer.
So why would a blood-sugar-lowering drug protect against cancer? One reason is that they reduce obesity, a risk factor for more than a dozen cancers. Secondly, AMPK, in addition to being a fuel sensor and metabolic master switch, regulates cell growth and replication. Once AMPK is activated, cancer cells starve themselves because the energy lifeline has been cut.
Longevity Without Calorie Restriction
Most of humanity suffers from nutritional overload. We eat too much of nearly everything. As such, most suffer from improper uptake of glucose and fat. As a result, our fat, slack-muscled bodies are filled with cellular waste and damaged proteins, much of it directly caused by low levels of AMPK or improper AMPK signaling.
Fortunately, this can be treated. Increasing AMPK mimics the effects of calorie restriction and is associated with a 20-30% increase in lifespan in laboratory models. When switched on, AMPK triggers the use of stored energy from fat, enhances the removal of sugar and fats from the blood, reduces cellular inflammation, cleans up cellular junk, and even leads to the formation of new mitochondria, which is hugely important.
If you could control the growth and health of mitochondria, you could theoretically greatly extend your lifespan without any diseases typically associated with old age. You could avoid metabolic diseases and simultaneously retain the energy of youth.
From an athletic perspective, controlling the vitality and number of mitochondria in your muscle cells could lead to huge improvements in strength endurance that didn't decline with the passing of years. Clearly, AMPK is one amazing chemical.
So, What's the Problem?
So, why aren't we all taking these AMPK-modulating drugs? Well, they're problematic in a couple of ways.
One, they potentially cause lactic acidosis, a potentially fatal condition that occurs when lactic acid builds up in the bloodstream faster than it can be removed. In fact, lactic acidosis was the main reason the diet drug phenformin was taken off the market.
Secondly, they might not work so well for bodybuilders and strength athletes because, in addition to all the great things that most AMPK modulators do, they also inhibit muscle protein synthesis during resistance exercise.
A Natural Alternative to Drugs
Luckily, there are chemicals found in nature that also affect AMPK, one of which is cyanidin-3 glucoside or C3G (sold as Indigo-3G (Buy at Amazon)), a naturally occurring anthocyanidin found in dark berries and black rice.
It's a pigment that gives these foods and others their characteristic indigo color. Plants are exposed to harsh UV light for long periods, so they evolved to produce C3G and other polyphenols to protect themselves from free-radical damage. C3G conveys much of this protection to anyone who ingests it. When C3G is isolated and taken in larger quantities, though, it also has powerful blood-glucose-lowering properties that rival pharmaceutical versions.
One of several laboratory experiments using C3G showed two dosage-related drops in blood glucose of 33% and 51%, prompting the authors of the study to remark how favorably it compared to glucose-disposal drugs.
Bodybuilders love C3G because it allows them to put on more muscle and simultaneously lose fat. Nutrients are specifically shuttled toward muscle cells, resulting in better pumps, more strength, better performance, and ultimately more muscle. That way, lifters can eat more without worrying about fat storage.
And, like these glucose-disposal drugs, C3G also raises adiponectin levels while decreasing leptin levels. It does these things the same way that the glucose-disposal drugs do – by raising levels of AMPK with the downstream effects of increasing glucose and lipid uptake directly into muscle cells.
Users of C3G can literally ingest more calories and see it partitioned to muscle instead of fat. However, unlike prescription glucose-disposal agents, C3G doesn't inhibit muscle protein synthesis.
C3G's effects on AMPK activations on muscle growth are diminished via FOX01 (a protein that plays a role in insulin resistance), and AMPK works through FOX01 to hinder muscle protein synthesis.
Boosting AMPK – Considering the Options
There are four known ways to boost AMPK:
- Prescription drugs. Sure, you could take prescription glucose-disposal agents. However, as described earlier, these drugs might cause the potentially lethal condition called lactic acidosis and they also interfere with workout-induced muscle protein synthesis.
- Calorie restriction. Eating a lot less over years or even a lifetime increases AMPK, which is probably why calorie restriction seems to work in extending life span, at least in laboratory models. Unfortunately, calorie restriction is difficult, joyless, and contradictory to adding muscle.
- Exercise. Most exercise increases AMPK. Unfortunately, the increases in AMPK are short-lived and irregular and cease some time after exercise is over.
- Botanical extracts. Plant alternatives, particularly supplemental C3G (Buy at Amazon), work exceptionally well in raising AMPK, seemingly as well or better than prescription drugs, and they don't interfere with muscle protein synthesis.
References
- Dreyer HC et al. "Resistance exercise increases AMPK activity and reduces 4E-BP1 phosphorylation and protein synthesis in human skeletal muscle." J Physiol. 2006 Oct 15;576(Pt 2):613-24. PubMed: 16873412.
- Grace MH et al. "Hypoglycemic activity of a novel Anthocyanin-rich formulation from Lowbush Blueberry, Vacciniumangustifolium Aiton." Phytomedicine. 2009 May;16(5):406-15. PubMed: 19303751.
- Yun-Kyoung L et al. "Anthocyanins target AMPK/mTOR and AMPK/Wnt pathways in exerting anti-tumor effects in colon cancer or hepatocarcinoma cells." The FASEB Journal. 2010 Apr;24(S1);lb259.
- Libby G et al. "New Users of Metformin are at a Low Risk of Incident Cancer." Diabetes Care 2009;32(9):1620–1625. PubMed: 19564453.
- Liu X et al. "The role of AMPK/mTOR/S6K1 signaling axis in mediating the physiological process of exercise-induced insulin sensitization in skeletal muscle of C57BL/6 mice." Biochim Biophys Acta. 2012 Nov;1822(11):1716-26. PubMed: 22846606.
