A few years ago my daughters started expressing concern for my health. They nagged and cajoled at every opportunity, telling me I needed to get in better shape. I knew they were right but I didn’t want to go to the effort to change. I would huff and puff going up a flight of stairs. I admit that I was a little overweight. (Alright, I’ll tell the truth. I was obese.) I paid a premium price for most of my clothes because I had to shop in a large men’s specialty clothing store.
Finally, to put an end to the nagging, I joined the same gym where they worked out. I had never been to a gym in my life since phys ed in high school. I had no clue about how to use the machines or how to approach this working-out thing. In order to reduce the risk of injury, I engaged the services of a personal trainer. I endured an hour of cruel torture err… training three times a week religiously. I must admit that as time went by I started to feel better and was able to do more physically. My weight loss, however, was less than spectacular. After three months of torture I had lost a total of one pound!!
As you may have suspected, I really enjoy good food. And as most dieters will tell you, the biggest challenge to losing weight is the HUNGER. The truth is that, unless you exercise vigorously many hours a day, about 90% of weight loss has to do with what you put in your mouth and only about 10% is from exercise. You need to reduce your caloric intake. And when your body is used to eating at certain levels and you significantly reduce that, hunger results. Absent adequate motivation and strong will power, it’s really tough to stick to a weight loss regimen for any length of time in the face of perpetual hunger.
A Weight Management System
About the end of this initial three month period I was introduced to a weight loss system. One of the key components was some capsules, a nutritional supplement, that I took a short while before each meal. According to the documentation, the capsules would do two things. They would reduce the hunger pangs so your eating was not driven by food cravings. And they would burn off fat and reduce the conversion of carbs to be stored as fat. And all of this was heart healthy!
At the end of the next 90 days I had lost 15 pounds while not changing the level of physical activity. Still endured torture three time a week. But more than the pounds lost was the change in body shape. The fat was melting off and my clothes started to hang on me. I had to buy a smaller belt to keep my trousers up. The promise of the weight loss system was met. I was less hungry. I was satisfied with smaller portions. So my caloric intake was much less.
What was strange, and not mentioned in any of the promotional material, was that I started to crave healthier food. I used to hate fresh fruit and vegetables. But now I would munch on some grapes or some raw veggies with dip. That was a side effect for which I have no explanation.
At the end of 12 months I had lost 55 pounds. I had to replace my entire wardrobe, except my shoes and my ties! (And my daughters, wonderful women that they are, suggested that I do the world a favour and get rid of many of my ties. I’m not letting either one of them near my closet.)
This should not have been called a weight management system but rather a fat management system.
Under the Covers
If you have seen some of my writing you know that I am curious and have an analytical mind. I wanted to know what was behind this healthy nutritional supplement. The simple answer was that some of the ingredients in the capsules activated something in the body called the AMPK pathway. (I’m going to spell it out just this once – AMPK: Adenosine Monophosphate-activated Protein Kinase.)
Based on my research, switching on the AMPK pathway has many more health benefits than just helping with weight loss. As a result, I will probably continue to take the capsules even after I reach my target weight.
So what are these other benefits? I’m glad you asked.
- As we already saw, reduced levels of obesity: Reduction of hunger, reduction of fat storage, accelerated burning off stored fat
- Treatment and prevention of cancer: “… phytochemicals activate AMPK to increase cancer cell apoptosis (cancer cell death) and inhibit cell proliferation …” (Ref. 1) Refer also to (Ref. 2)
- Improvement of Type II Diabetes indicators: reduction in fasting glucose, reduction in hemoglobin A1c, decrease in insulin resistance (Ref. 3)
- Improved cardiovascular health: reduced LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglyceride levels, and improved heart health (Ref. 4)
Here is another case of solid benefits of healthy nutritional supplements not being adequately promoted for the prevention and treatment of disease. Why is that? Because the pharmaceutical industry can’t make obscene profits from well known nutritional supplements. And in most countries, nutritional supplement companies are prohibited by law from making specific health claims about their products.
References:
Reference 1: InYoung Kim and Yu-Ying He, Targeting the AMP-activated protein kinase for cancer prevention and therapy , Frontiers in Oncology, Published 15 July 2013.
Reference 2: Weidong Li, Shakir M. Saud, Matthew R. Young, Guohong Chen, and Baojin Hua, Targeting AMPK for cancer prevention and treatment, Oncotarget Open Access Impact Journal, Published 10 April 2015, doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.3629
Reference 3: Sandeep Rana, Elizabeth C. Blowers, and Amarnath Natarajan, Small molecule adenosine 5′-monophosphate activated protein kinase (AMPK) modulators and human diseases, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Published 8 January 2015, doi: 10.1021/jm401994c
Reference 4: Rai Ajit K. Srivastava, Stephen L. Pinkosky, Sergey Filippov, Jeffrey C. Hanselman, Clay T. Cramer, and Roger S. Newton, AMP-activated protein kinase: an emerging drug target to regulate imbalances in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism to treat cardio-metabolic diseases, Journal of Lipid Research, Published December 2012, v.53(12); 2012 DecPMC3494254
#healthscience #obesity #diabetes #heartdisease #cancer