Happy #moleculemonday! Calcium pyruvate is the main active ingredient in Trojan Horse and I wanted to elaborate a little on its mechanism of action as a fat burner. Pyruvate is the end product of glycolysis(breaking down of glucose) and from has a few different pathways. The normal fate of pyruvate is conversion to AcetylCoA, which then enters the Krebs cycle, where it produces the key electron carrier molecules NADH and FADH2. These molecules are responsible for creating the electrochemical gradient that drives the electron transport chain and ATP synthesis. In Trojan Horss, we pushed the other fate of pyruvate, conversion to oxaloacetate, which then uses NADH to be reduced to malate. Oxaloacetate shuttles electrons away from the Krebs cycle, "uncoupling" the 2 pathways which are normally connected. By doing this, the electrons that are used to make NADH/FADH2, are no longer available and are shuttled into the cytosol(from the mitochondria). In an effort by our body to synthesize more NADH/FADH2, fat is oxidized completely into CO, and the electrons from this process are then used to make NADH/FADH2. This is energetically unfavorable, so your body is working much harder to make ATP. This excess energy is from the breakdown of fats and production of heat. This is how pyruvate can be used as a fat burner in the body. Pretty cool, right? The dose in most studies is 4g of Ca pyruvate, which is the dose found in Trojan Horse, taken 2-3x a day. I hope this sheds some light into how I came up with this and how it works so well to burn fat without stimulants.
