What makes DNP work

[Demon Deacon]

Is is the increased temp or is it some kind of chemical reaction at the cellular level?

[billy_ba]

I thought dnp slows down your cellular atp cycle.

[Maraxus]

This was posted over at www.AnabolicMonsterx.com by Gymdog:

I was sitting in my Biology class, and the professor was covering cellular functions, and he explained about the conversion of ATP. Then he got into poisons & "uncouplers". He started going into it, and I was thinking, "Hmm, DNP sounds an awful lot like a coupler." Sure enough, he popped out a vial of yellow powder and mentioned to the class that it was used as a diet drug in the 1920's until the FDA took it off the market. He mentioned about it causing cataracts and killing patients, but what I find interesting was that he explained exactly HOW it works. Basically, an uncoupler (like DNP) "melts" a hole in the membrane of your mitochondria, which are a part of the system which turns ADP+P into ATP. Protons (in the form of hydrogen) normally flow through a little chamber (called "ATP Synthase") and inside a "bubble" that ADP+P flows through. The ADP+P "bumps" into the protons, causing the ADP+P to bond and form ATP. The problem here is DNP "eats" a hole in the membrane and allows those protons to escape out of the mitochondria, instead of forcing them to travel through the ATP Sythase to excite the ADP+P to form ATP. So, your body takes all that energy and instead of converting it to ATP, it just escapes in the form of heat. He said the reason why it killed people who used it WAS NOT due to overheating or dehydration, but rather the lack of ATP. He went on to say if the body is deprived of ATP for tenths of a second, you die. It makes sense, because depending on your dosage, depends on how dangerous it is, since the more you consume, the more the DNP "uncouples" your mitochondria. If you uncouple a small amount, you're fine, but uncouple too much, and you die. Just FYI, the average 150 lb person uses 500 lbs of ATP everyday. You don't produce that much ATP, but your body goes through it so quickly, and the ATP recycles itself back to ADP+P once it's been used as energy, therefore if you took all the ATP your body used throughout a day, it'd be roughly 500 lbs. I was compelled to inform the professor about how it's a popular drug with bodybuilders, but I didn't want to draw attention to myself from my professor or my classmates. I just found it interesting that it's actually the lack of ATP that kills you from too much DNP...
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[Demon Deacon]

thanks good post