Energy Metabolism

How would you explain to a friend, energy metabolism, (i.e. glucose entering the body and energy creation} using your knowledge from Biochemistry?

Well I am not so sure that my friends would appreciate having me tell them about energy intake and metabolism, but here it goes.

We take in complex forms of food in order to survive. It is the bodies job to break them down and metabolize the less complex more fully catabolized products to make and store energy from intermediates. The sugar glucose and its stored form glycogen are the primary intermediates used in energy metabolism in the human body. Without glucose we last about 4 minutes before our bodies start to shut down. Within a half hour, our bodily extreme short-term stores would be tapped and we would be dead. The key word is stores. The body stores energy for normal fasting and times of famine in the form of fat and muscle in the case of extreme famine. It would be likely that we would just run out of glucose like we might run out of air when we stop breathing, but extreme athletes must not only keep up their critical electrolyte balance, but also their blood glucose levels. Diabetics deal with swings in glucose levels on a daily basis, due to the lack of regular or functional insulin production. This condition can absolutely be fatal when the sugar unbalance swings to far in either direction. The body has evolved under the condition known as homeostasis, meaning that the body self regulates to stay in working balance. The sugar balance regulation in our blood is no exception.

In addition to the glucose in blood, glucose leaving the blood and entering each cell in our bodies is as, if not more important than any other form. The cells in the body utilize the symbiont organelle the mitochondria to produce our energy currency AMP, ADP, and ATP. These molecules are our source of life. The energy stored in advance in the bonds of these and a select group of other molecules power all of the chemical reactions in our bodies, every second of the day.

Well this was the basic knowledge that I have learned about glucose metabolism and the subsequent ATP production once glucose has entered our bodies.

MCB