Ray Peat on ATP

"The retention of water by the living substance is a topic that reductionist biology has been reluctant to discuss. There are no pumps for biological water, and it took a long time for a water channel protein to be proposed. The structural molecules of a cell, its metabolites and water are mutually dissolved, and their affinity for each other is affected by the cell’s energetic relation to its environment. This mutual affinity is regulated by the balance of hormones and nutrients. ATP is a crucial factor in regulating the optimal state of water retention."

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When metabolic energy is failing, as in hypothyroidism, muscles become easily fatigued, and take up excess water, and the barrier structure is loosened, allowing macromolecules and ATP and other metabolites to leak out, while extraneous substances enter. Typical muscle enzymes such as lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase appear in the bloodstream in typical hypothyroid myopathy, and heart proteins, including a particular form of lactic dehydrogenase and a muscle protein, troponin, appear in the blood after a heart stress or fatigue combined with hypothyroidism or systemic inflammation."

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Any disruption of normal cell or tissue structure is recognized by the organism as a problem to be corrected; the appearance of ATP outside cells is a basic sign of damage and danger. Special enzymes degrade extracellular ATP into ADP, AMP, adenosine, and other purines, and these contribute to the alarm-stress signals. Increased synthesis of serotonin is one of the most important responses to leaked ATP and adenosine, but serotonin can increase the disorder of the actin system, increasing leakiness, in a vicious circle;"

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Extracellular ATP reaches a high level in tumors and becomes part of a self-stimulating growth promoting system."

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Severe stresses in one part of the body spread their influence through the body, in the process now called the bystander or off-target effect. Serotonin, nitric oxide, and ATP are among the substances that are known to spread damage"

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Vitamin E preserves ATP; ATP is a source of biological energy, but it also stabilizes or relaxes tissue. This energized relaxation is the ready state."

- Nutrition For Women

"In a vitamin E deficiency, certain tissues lose enough ATP that they cant function normally. Muscles cramp, and eventually can harden and become dystrophic. Magnesium also helps to maintain ATP levels, and for example can be used to stop menstrual cramps. In an extreme case of vitamin E deficiency, reflexes become abnormal; in some animals, softening of the brain is the first symptom of a vitamin E deficiency."

- Nutrition For Women

"Normal inhibitors of cell division (chalones) are not retained in cells at a normal level when ATP and vitamin E are deficient."

- Nutrition For Women

"Sensory nerves can release ATP into surrounding tissues, and this seems to be part of their trophic influence on healing and inflammation. A.E. Needham (Growth Process of Animals) has discussed the possibility that it is a vitamin: when added to the diet of animals, it increases their growth. This must have some relevance to our nutrition, since fresh food contains abundant ATP."

- Nutrition For Women

"the brains ATP content was found to increase with evolution and with the degree of alertness."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"I dont know whether ATP has ever been used therapeutically for psychosis, but since it is one of the central points in both energy metabolism and structure, its use is definitely suggested by the theory."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"In a pharmacological approach, reduced expenditure of glycogen, ATP and creative phosphate (Dardymov, 1971) combined with increased protein synthesis (Rozin, 1971) and increased resistance of cells and organisms to stress, can be achieved with ginseng, eleutherococcus, and 2-benzylbenzimidazole"

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"The membrane theory says that the process of concentrating a substance against its gradient is active transport, and requires the use of ATP. Experiments by Ling and others showed that the energy metabolism of cells could be poisoned so that no ATP was being produced, but that cells were able to maintain their ionic gradient, although sodium was free to diffuse into the cell, through the membrane. All the ATP has to do is to be present, passively occupying its place in the cell."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since Ling didn’t imagine that ATP bond energy was being consumed constantly to run membrane sodium pumps, he wasn’t concerned with any energy that might be released by hydrolyzing that bond. He, like Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, was aware that the ATP molecule adsorbs with considerable energy to protein molecules, and that its presence governs the shape of the protein molecule."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In a muscle cell, the presence of ATP stabilizes the muscle in its relaxed state, and in any cell, similar associations between ATP and proteins stabilize the cell in a basic resting condition in which it favors the presence of potassium over sodium."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Everything that associates with a protein, such as potassium or ammonium, has an inductive effect on the protein’s structure and interactions with its surroundings, and substances that adsorb powerfully, especially ATP and steroids, have powerful influences on the properties of the system. Molecules that bind powerfully to proteins change the ways the proteins influence the properties of water, and the properties of water govern cells’ metabolism and their interactions with each other and with the environment. Ling called these influential binding molecules cardinal adsorbents."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When cells are excited, they release some ATP into their local surroundings, where it signals fatigue or injury, activating the formation of inflammatory factors such as TNF-alpha, which promote the sleep rhythm."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The electrical and metabolic properties of this high energy resting state of the brain can be seen in a healthy skeletal muscle, which has a high ATP content, and relaxes immediately after stimulation and contraction. If the ATP is depleted by prolonged intense stimulation, or if it isn’t replenished quickly enough, because of hypothyroidism, the relaxation is very slow, leading to cramping."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Gilbert Ling’s work shows that it’s the electron-withdrawing effect of ATP that explains its effects, rather than its internal bond energy."

- July 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Many of the new observations related to seeing cells as self-organizing coacervate systems are reminiscent of Gilbert Ling’s observations. For example, ATP increases the solubility of proteins (Patel, et al., 2017), and when energy is depleted, some proteins come out of solution, forming membrane-less organelles, filaments, and granules."

- January 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides directly stabilizing the internal structures of the cell, progesterone increases the ATP concentration and oxygen consumption, decreases excitatory systems and numerous inflammation-related processes, decreases intracellular calcium concentration, and increases the use of glucose, leading to increased carbon dioxide production, as well as adjusting breathing and pH."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In my teens and twenties, I needed about 8000 calories per day when I was physically active, about 4000 to 5000 when I was sedentary, but after I took thyroid, I needed only about half as many calories. Thyroid is the basic regulator of blood glucose, and it causes it to be fully oxidized for energy, so that it produces ATP efficiently, on relatively few calories."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Heart failure, shock, and other problems involving excess lactic acid can be treated successfully by poisoning glycolysis with dichloroacetic acid, reducing the production of lactic acid, increasing the oxidation of glucose, and increasing cellular ATP concentration: Thyroid, vitamin B1, biotin, etc., do the same."

- 2000 - July

"Glucose, and apparently glycolysis, are required for the production of nitric oxide, as for the accumulation of calcium, at least in some types of cell, and these coordinated changes, which lower energy production. could be produced by a reduction in carbon dioxide, in a physical change even more basic than the energy level represented by ATP The use of Krebs cycle substances in the synthesis of amino acids, and other products, would decrease the formation of CO2, creating a situation in which the system would have two possible states, one, the glycolytic stress state, and the other, the carbon dioxide producing energy-efficient state."

- 2000 - July

"When ATP breaks down it absorbs water, and in a water-free environment, the equilibrium favors the formation of ATP. The chemical activity of water in cells is lower than it is in ordinary water. Given the right (anhydrous) environment, ATP will form spontaneously. As the reactants form ATP and give up water, energy is (at least theoretically) absorbed by the chemical bond. In the abstract, this shows that the formation of ATP and the absorption of energy could be caused by factors that control the activity or availability of water."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"The abstract idea that ATP could be formed spontaneously by a relaxing cell (recovering from stimulation )goes against the idea that a cell is a motor and ATP is the fuel."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Several researchers have demonstrated that intravenous injections of ATP prevent death from shock, that shock depletes the ATP of the cells, and that depleted cells absorb ATP much more readily than normal cells that dont lack it. All of the biologists and biochemists (at Oregons Institute for Molecular Biology) that I mentioned this to said it was impossible, because ATP is highly ionized and cant cross the cell membrane."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Liver ATP is increased as a result of inreasing blood sodium. An increase of only about 15% in the blood sodium, for example, caused the cells ATP to nearly double."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"The membrane-pump theory says that the cell consumes ATP to expel the sodium which enters, and increased external sodium increases its likelihood of entering the cell, but in reality increased external sodium causes more ATP to be produced. The precise balance of ions seems to make the difference between consumption or production of ATP."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"The elimination of water from the environment in which ATP is formed or decomposed favors its formation, and in this environment ATP doesnt contain its reputed high energy bonds, but it still has its strong affinity for binding to proteins."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Carbon dioxide, produced by respiration, and ATP hydrolysis, are two powerful acidifiers of the cell; with sufficient stimulation both can probably act simultaneously, and in this situation the pH decrease will tend to oppose the exciting stimulus."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 2

"Intravenous injection of ATP cures shock, restoring normal circulation and tissue function, but again, the idea of membranes and their pumps has kept mainline science on its relatively sterile track."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"here are several systems that oppose the toxic effects of adrenalin. GABA, dopamine, and adenosine have multiple anti-adrenergic effects. In many situations, the parasympathetic system is protective against adrenalin. The protective steroids also act at many levels. Magnesium, retained in the ce)l largely under the influence of ATP and thyroid, is our basic calcium blocker, or calcium antagonist. GABA and dopamine inhibit the ACTH-glucccorticoid system, and shift the steroid balance toward the protective anti-glucocorticoids, progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, and DHEA."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter