Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Q: Do some foods reduce some diseases like people claim?
Krishna: These myths are propagated by people who don't understand the bio-chemistry of living beings. So let me explain this in a simple and brief manner, although it is much, much more complicated than this.
Just look at this pic below. If it makes your head turn round and round, I must say this is a very simple picture. We have much more complex pictures of biochemical pathways than this.
Don't worry about it. Just read what I posted. It is easy to understand.
Source: roche.com/biochemical-pathways
The Human body is a very complex system. There will be millions of biochemical interactions taking place in each body every moment.
We stay alive because millions of different chemical reactions* are taking place inside our bodies all the time. Chemical reactions that take place inside living things are called biochemical reactions. The sum of all the biochemical reactions in an organism is called metabolism. Your metabolism constantly provides your body with energy for essential body functions like breathing and digestion. Your body needs a minimum number of calories (the basal metabolic rate or BMR) to sustain these functions.
Metabolism includes processes for cell growth, reproduction, response to the environment, survival mechanisms, sustenance, and maintenance of cell structure and integrity. Metabolism refers to all the physical and chemical processes in the body that convert or use energy.
Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. Metabolism includes both exothermic (energy-releasing) chemical reactions and endothermic (energy-absorbing) chemical reactions. Exothermic reactions in organisms are called catabolic reactions. These reactions break down molecules into smaller units and release energy.
An example of a catabolic reaction is the breakdown of glucose during cellular respiration, which releases energy that cells need to carry out life processes. Endothermic reactions in organisms are called anabolic reactions. These reactions build up bigger molecules from smaller ones and absorb energy. An example of an anabolic reaction is the joining of amino acids to form a protein.
Most of the biochemical reactions that happen inside of living organisms require help. Why is this the case? For one thing, temperatures inside living things are usually too low for biochemical reactions to occur quickly enough to maintain life. The concentrations of reactants may also be too low for them to come together and react. Where do the biochemical reactions get the help they need to proceed? From the enzymes.
An enzyme is a protein that speeds up a biochemical reaction. It is a biological catalyst. An enzyme generally works by reducing the amount of activation energy needed to start the reaction. Less activation energy is needed when the correct enzyme is present than when it is not present.
An enzyme speeds up the reaction by lowering the required activation energy.
Enzymes are involved in most biochemical reactions, and they do their jobs extremely well. A typical biochemical reaction that would take several days or even several centuries to happen without an enzyme is likely to occur in just a split second with the proper enzyme! Without enzymes to speed up biochemical reactions, most organisms cannot not survive.
Enzymes are substrate-specific. The substrate of an enzyme is the specific substance it affects. Each enzyme works only with a particular substrate, which explains why there are so many different enzymes. In addition, for an enzyme to work, it requires specific conditions, such as the right temperature and pH. Some enzymes work best under acidic conditions, for example, while others work best in neutral environments.
There are hundreds of known inherited metabolic disorders in humans. In most of them, a single enzyme is either not produced by the body at all, or is otherwise produced in a form that doesn’t work. The missing or defective enzyme is like an absentee worker on the cell’s assembly line. Imagine the auto assembly line from the image at the start of this section. What if the worker who installed the steering wheel was absent? How would this impact the overall functioning of the vehicle? When an enzyme is missing, toxic chemicals build up, or an essential product isn’t made. Generally, the normal enzyme is missing because the individual with the disorder inherited two copies of a gene mutation, which may have originated many generations previously.
Biochemical reactions occur when the interaction of multiple (two or more) substances works to produce another substance. Biochemical reactions involve reactants and products. The reactants are the chemicals that are present at the beginning of the reaction, and they combine to cause the reaction.
Any given inherited metabolic disorder is generally quite rare in the general population. However, there are so many different metabolic disorders that a total of one in 1,000 to 2,500 newborns can be expected to have one.
Homeostasis Enzymes control the chemical reactions that sustain life. Conditions inside the body must enable enzymes to catalyse the multitude of chemical reactions needed for life processes. Maintaining these conditions even when external conditions vary, sometimes quite considerably, is essential. This maintenance is called homeostasis. Materials flow in and out of cells constantly, but concentrations inside and outside are maintained. A dynamic equilibrium is established. Various mechanisms also maintain body temperature (4).
Examples of what can go wrong:
Disturbing the delicate chemical balance in the body and delaying its return to normal may cause illness. Every illness results from chemical reactions that give rise to characteristic symptoms. Sometimes the body’s own defences cause changes which make us feel ill, for example, by raising body temperature (fever) to slow the growth of viruses.
If you want more details please click on link five.
Moreover, your lifestyle choices, external factors, stress, infections too can influence the bio-chemistry of your body.
With such a complex system controlled by several factors, just an 'imaginative' solution will not work.
GFR= glomerular filtration rate - it shows how well the kidneys are filtering
* It's tough to say exactly how many cells are in the human body, but the most current estimate is 37.2 trillion (around 30 to 40 trillion cells). This number likely fluctuates over time and varies from person to person depending on his or her size, but it should be pretty close, so let's use it!
(1 x 10^9 RXNs per second per cell) x (37x 10^12) = 37 x 10^21, i.e. 37 with 21 zeros after it, or 37 thousand billion billion chemical reactions per second in the human body. (1)
You might be wondering at this point how so many reactions can be taking place every second in our cells. And the answer lies in their size. Whether or not a reaction will take place, and how long it takes to complete are largely determined by two things: a) how frequently atoms and molecules in a given space crash into each other, which is a function of the size of the container relative to the number of atoms and molecules, and b) how fast they're moving when they collide, which is a function of temperature. It just so happens that the average Eukaryotic cell, of which all multicellular organisms are comprised, has a volume of about 1 x 10^-11 liters, which nature selected over time because it is the perfect size for the most efficient biochemistry, i.e. the perfect number of collisions per unit time at body temperature, which is 37 degrees Celsius for humans.
These chemical reactions are the basis of what we would consider to be life. Copying our DNA and manufacturing new organelles and cell walls so the cells can multiply, transcribing DNA into RNA which is then translated into proteins, which are the building blocks of organic life's structures, and also comprise a vast array of enzymes, which help reactions occur under the right set of circumstances, good things like sugar and fat are broken down into usable energy (ATP) and harmful things like bacterial toxins are destroyed and expelled, hormones are synthesized to communicate with other cells, and the list goes on and on.
Footnotes:
1. https://brainly.in/question/9968664#:~:text=let's%20use%20it!-,(1%20x%2010%5E9%20RXNs%20per%20second%20per%20cell),second%20in%20the%20human%20body.
2. https://humanbiology.pressbooks.tru.ca/chapter/3-10-chemical-reacti...
3. https://wou.edu/chemistry/courses/online-chemistry-textbooks/ch103-...
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