Scientists have identified a natural enzyme in our bodies called AMPK that is so beneficial it regulates metabolism, whole body energy, and is also one of the body’s most powerful anti-aging tools. In fact, AMPK promotes numerous regenerative pathways and acts in every organ, gland, tissue, and cell in the human body to restore youthful function. Yes, “activating AMPK” can deliver a big list of Better Body Brighter Mind benefits!
Understanding AMPK: A Science-Based Overview
AMPK is an abbreviation for the enzyme adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase. Here are just a few science-based facts about this natural enzyme: Over time, AMPK activity declines. The result is accelerated aging. AMPK activation has been shown in science to promote all kinds of healthy cellular signaling pathways contributing to longer, healthier lifespans.
The Benefits of Activating AMPK
By taking steps to activate AMPK, it becomes possible to enhance youthful functionality throughout our body. When you activate AMPK you can feel it, measure it, and track its benefits in multiple ways (i.e., how good you feel, less aches and pains, less inflammation, better skin appearance, weight loss, healthy toned muscle mass) and improvements in all kinds of laboratory tests and blood markers associated with healthier aging.
How to Activate AMPK: A Pathway to Youthful Functionality
AMPK is so beneficial because it is first a master metabolic regulator in cells where it drives healthy cellular processes and pathways that cause the body to run more efficiently. When activated, AMPK helps combat degenerative changes by several beneficial pathways including:
- Enhancing energy metabolism, meaning AMPK tells cells to burn fuel for energy rather than storing it as fat.
- Promoting cellular “housekeeping” functions (autophagy) that help clean up “junk” proteins and toxins that would otherwise accumulate in aging cells.
- And here’s a BIG one – AMPK reduces chronic inflammation.
These functions usually operate at peak efficiency when we’re young. As an example, young individuals generally don’t have chronic inflammation. But like so many other systems in our bodies, AMPK activity declines with aging. This results in impaired metabolic function, increased inflammation and reduced cellular housekeeping functions—all of which accelerate aging.
Activating AMPK boosts health and can help prevent many of the most common causes of premature death. Increasing AMPK helps restore cells’ youthful function, and its beneficial effects can be seen and felt throughout the brain and body. In other words, you’ll know when you’re activating AMPK because of how good you look and feel!
The Impact of AMPK on Insulin Levels
Very recent research published at the National Library of Medicine proposes that aging is a process that can be biologically targeted and modified. As scientific understanding of the mechanisms of aging become better understood, researchers are stating that targets such as AMPK can be used to prevent age-related functional decline and serve to both improve and extend lifespan.
Remarkably, from animal studies, it appears possible that interventions starting as late as the equivalent “of older than 70 years of age could significantly extend life by more than 20 years and increase health span even more substantially,” according to researchers. That would mean that it’s never too late to start activating AMPK and of course, the earlier you start the more beneficial it will be.
As “amazing” as this concept sounds, here’s what is really happening with AMPK:
The Dangers of Excess Insulin: Aging’s Primary Driver
First, the level of AMPK your body produces is inversely proportional to the amount of insulin in your blood. This means if insulin is high, AMPK will either be low, or like a switch, turned “off.” This relationship between insulin and AMPK is absolute. There’s no getting around it. So, in essence, to keep AMPK high, you need to take steps to keep insulin low.
Now here’s the problem with this scenario. It’s not common for doctors to be measuring “fasting insulin” to see where your insulin levels are. They do measure “fasting glucose” but the problem with this is, your “fasting glucose” no matter how healthy the number, tells you absolutely nothing about your fasting insulin.
Here’s the problem, science is just now showing that fasting insulin begins to rise years before there is a problem with fasting glucose. That means, if you or your doctor have not been measuring your fasting insulin, it’s likely that it’s already elevated. Now you see where I am going, if it is elevated, your AMPK levels have been suffering potentially for years!
Here’s what science says about excess insulin:
- High insulin levels are the primary driver of mammalian aging. (Let that sink in!)
- Decreasing your fasting levels of insulin slows aging and promotes better overall health and longevity.
- High insulin and “insulin resistance” are associated with an elevated risk of age-related diseases shortening health span (less health in your years) and shortening life span (how many years you live).
- Age-related disorders include neurodegenerative diseases, hypertension, high blood lipids, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and increased risk of cancer.
- High insulin promotes increased lipogenesis (your body making fat from the food that you eat) and increased fat storage (your body storing every morsel and tidbit of fat and carbs you eat as body fat).
- Moreover, there is impaired autophagy activity (this accelerates aging in every cell in the human body) and less endothelial NO synthase activity (a primary cause of high blood pressure).
- These changes are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction (loss of energy in every cell in the body and brain) and oxidative stress (another marker of accelerated aging).
While all the above are truly alarming, the “impaired autophagy activity” is one of the worst as autophagy can be characterized as “cellular housecleaning” or “garbage pickup.” Just imagine if the garbage collectors in your neighborhood or city went on strike. There’s no problem short term, like over a couple weeks. But if no garbage pickup happens for months, you’ve got a big problem. The same occurs in your cells. Every day there is cellular waste that needs to be moved out of the cell. If there is no cellular autophagy, the cell gets sick and becomes a “dysfunctional” cell. If that goes on too long, you’ve got real health problems.
Now let’s move from the “bad news” to the “great news.” Earlier I stated that, “the level of AMPK your body produces is inversely proportional to the amount of insulin in your blood”. Get ready for it! The reverse is also true! Activating or increasing AMPK will decrease insulin levels. So, to “turn on your body’s youth switch” you want to focus on “activating AMPK.” Increasing AMPK will improve insulin sensitivity, then your body will produce less insulin, and everything will work more like it did in your youth.
AMPK Activation: A Key to Longevity and Health
Here’s how powerful AMPK activation truly is! Studies show that activating AMPK drives insulin down to youthful levels and that it may:
- Ameliorate (fix) metabolic syndrome, reduce the risk of type II diabetes, help diabetics control blood sugar, and decrease the downstream problems associated with type II diabetes.
- Shut down chronic inflammation and inflammatory conditions.
- Reduce the risk of atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke.
- Prevent overgrowth of heart chambers (ventricular hypertrophy) and congestive heart failure.
- Decrease the risk of several common cancers while improving outcomes in cancer therapy.
- Reduce the risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders.
- Support healthy bone and cartilage structure.
- Help prevent and control autoimmune disorders.
In short, activating AMPK is analogous to flipping on a “youth switch” that has the potential to decelerate – and potentially reverse – some of the harmful effects of degenerative aging. One of the most powerful ways AMPK activation brings so many benefits is restoring youthful insulin sensitivity and in combination with diet and exercise, decreasing fasting insulin levels.
The Obesity and Aging Connection
Here’s a fact: More than 70% of Americans are overweight or obese.
Being overweight or obese is a glaring indication that insulin levels are high as in the majority of cases, overweight individuals are having problems with insulin sensitivity. Keep in mind, the problems with insulin occur years before there is a problem with fasting glucose.
To add to this hidden insulin epidemic, current science states that “93 percent of North Americans are NOT metabolically healthy.” This would translate to 93 out of 100 people are beginning to have trouble with the age-accelerating effects of insulin and they don’t know it!
This presents a major health problem spanning across the majority of the population thought of as “otherwise healthy” because abdominal fat churns out massive amounts of inflammation, which damages blood vessels, heart muscle, brain cells, and other tissues throughout the body. This “runaway” chronic inflammation is now being called “inflammaging” by researchers because this factor negatively influences, drives, and accelerates aging in every cell in the human body.
One of AMPK’s many health improving functions is to help reduce abdominal fat and the inflammation it produces. As stated previously, AMPK activity decreases with age, and as this occurs weight gain and chronic inflammation often follow because the body is more likely to store fat rather than burn it for energy. Abdominal fat is a clear sign that AMPK activity is lower than it optimally should be. Activating AMPK re-establishes a youthful intracellular environment, reduces abdominal fat, and decreases the inflammation associated with it.
Improving Health Span and Lifespan
In addition to protecting against conditions such as type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, activating AMPK has been shown to extend health span and lifespan in animal models and to improve markers of longevity in humans.
In summary:
- Many critical factors that contribute to aging are regulated in part by AMPK. Its activation is one of the promising anti-aging interventions being investigated by scientists worldwide.
- AMPK functions as the body’s “youth switch” and activating AMPK programs cells to recover several aspects of youthful function.
- Research shows that activating AMPK improves insulin sensitivity, resolves lipid disturbances, and protects brain cells and blood vessels.
- AMPK activation is an essential part of any anti-aging, health span-enhancing regimen.
Please see the AMPK video and other articles at Better Body Brighter Mind that are dedicated to show you how to best activate AMPK for better health, longevity, and vitality.
