 Okay everybody, Dr. O. In this video, we're going to talk about ATP or adenosine triphosphate. So it's pretty quick to describe it. So you're going to see throughout these metabolism videos, I'm going to try to give examples of why they're significant, maybe in the real world, right? Because you always wonder, why do I have to know metabolic pathways, ATP production, et cetera. So of course we need ATP, but we'll start there. So adenosine triphosphate, like the name implies, it's actually built from a ribose with an adenine, a nucleotide, that's where the adenosine comes from. And there are three phosphates, adenosine triphosphate. But as you can see here, you can also have adenosine monophosphate and adenosine diphosphate. So we usually talk about the last two. We usually talk about ADP or adenosine diphosphate being used energy, right? We spent it and it has to now be recycled into ATP, adenosine triphosphate. And that's fine. But the first thing you might ask is why there's so much energy here. The number one energy source in your body is those two red lines there. The unstable or high energy bonds that hold that third phosphate onto ATP, but then also the one that holds the second phosphate onto ADP. We don't talk about that as much, but we'll hear in just a moment. Let's just talk about ATP for now. As the third phosphate is removed from ATP, the phosphate's going to be needed too, but it's also going to transfer its energy. So think about ATP has its energy and it can hand it off. It can give it away to some metabolic pathway, some metabolic process. That's how ATP works. But the phosphates are needed too. They might be needed in some sort of pumping mechanism or all throughout the body, but they're not wasted. And if they aren't needed, then they're going to be recycled as you turn ADP back into ATP, which is the function of our entire cellular respiration system. But that second phosphate can also pop off. So if you're in a state of very low energy where you're using up ATP faster than you can make it, you will start to turn ADP into AMP or adenosine monophosphate. And the reason that's important is because adenosine monophosphate or more importantly something called AMPK, adenosine monophosphate kinase is an enzyme that's basically a fuel gauge. So if your body starts to see way too much AMP around, it turns on this enzyme that basically says, okay, we need to stop making glucose. We need to stop making cholesterol, stop making triglycerides. We have to stop making stuff because we're running out of fuel. And we have to burn fat. So this AMPK kinase basically says it makes your cells more sensitive to insulin, which is why it's actually activated by the drug metformin. So metformin is a very common hypoglycemic drug that you'd give to a type 2 diabetic. Well, the reason it works is it fools the body into thinking you're in this starvation mode, which makes insulin more sensitive. So hopefully you should bring glucose levels down. It also tells the body, let's burn fat for fuel. We got all these fuel stores. Let's use them. And again, this could be a topic for another day. This is also why AMP kinase as this fuel gauge activates fasting mechanisms. So a lot of the health benefits of fasting appear to come from this, from this loss of energy that occurs if you're not eating. What else? It'll lead to recycling processes in the body called autophagy. It'll lead to the cleaning up of old proteins and old cells you don't need like apoptosis as well as this autophagy process. So as you can see, people are talking a lot about when we should eat, should be fast, these kind of things. Well, the health benefits actually come from this. You see right here, AMP, adenosine monophosphate. So just want to know that this stuff is significant. You might have to understand the biochemistry behind it. But if you have type 2 diabetic patients taking metformin, well, you now know that it's using this metabolic process and then the same thing with the health benefits of fasting. So I'm not going to ask you now. I just want you to see why it does matter, why you do have to know this stuff. So here we see ATP becoming ADP. We said ATP was our primary energy currency. As ATP releases that third phosphate and releases that energy that was in that bond, that's what allows it to do work. And then it becomes ADP. Then when we have more energy, we can use that energy in our electron transport system to take ADP and reattach that third phosphate making ATP. And this happens constantly. Now in the unit on muscle metabolism, I'll also show you where something called creatine phosphate comes into play. But I don't want to overwhelm you right now. Okay, so that is ATP adenosine triphosphate and then just a few interesting things about it. I hopefully at least appreciate a little bit more than you did a few minutes ago. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.