What are all the componets that we refer to as metabolism? Body temperature, respiration, and heart rate are pretty obvious but what else is involved.
IANABiologist but I am in a Biotechnology degree program. By my understanding, metabolism is not body temp, respiration or heart rate (my TV viewing tells me that those are vital signs).
Metabolism is term for all the chemical reactions that occur in an organism, and is made up of: Catabolism (which breaks down organic matter into large molecules and harvests energy using cellular respiration) and Anabolism (which uses that energy to build proteins and amino acids).
Oh boy. That’s pretty cool Smeghead.
I could have phrased the question better. I was looking for things that we could actually be aware of that affect our metabloic rate. I have always believed that maintaining high levels of activity for a few hours at a time each day produces some kind of drug or hormone that reduces appetite. I always experience quick weight loss when I am in work situations that are fast paced and physical. My appetitie actually decreases.
metabolism is biochemical reactions.
chemical reactions are affected by the quantities of chemicals reacting and the quantities of chemicals produced.
metabolism is a intricate web of long chains of chemical reactions. something that speeds up or slows a particular reaction can affect something else which can affect something else which can affect something else which can affect something else which can affect something else. well you get the idea.
Metabolic reactions are catalysed be enzymes. Metabolic pathway (series of metabolic reactions) are heavily regulated, not only by the availability of the starting material and the concentration of the products, but also by the concentration and activity of the metabolic enzymes. Many hormones the activity of metabolic enzymes, either by stimulating the production or degradation, or by modifications that alter the activity of the enzymes themselves, e.g. by phosphorylation. In addition, the uptake of nutrients into different cells can also be regulated by hormones: e.g. stimulation of the insulin receptor by insulin will, by a chain of regulatory interactions, increase the number of active glucose and amino acid transporters on the cell surface.
In post #5 the OP clarified what he really wants to know. And it has nothing to do with understanding chemistry.
AIUI, he wants to understand what affects gross human metabolic rate. Colloquially speaking, what controls the fuel mileage humans get out of their fuel and how that can be changed to burn more or less calories per hour of living. Both while exercising / exerting and while sedentary.
That’s not a question I can answer any better than “Everybody knows …”. But somebody here can.
Thanks for the support. I actually did appreciate all of the above answers because they clearly demonstrate how important all aspects of our state of being are in controlling our general health and emotional state of well being including weight and many other things that cannot be clearly seperated from weight.
It reminds me of mixing paints, there are an infinite amount of colors we can come up with simply by mixing a few colors in varying amounts. Very much the same as our metabolism. I almost seems like it would be easier to be able to grasp a color we could apply to different types when evaluating the reasons they are having problems.
Most of the fuel your cells burn, and the energy produced, goes simply to keeping your relatively uninsulated body about 10-20 degrees warmer than its surroundings. You emit about 100W of heat all the time, 24/7. That’s where most of your energy goes. The fact that you bump up your power output to 200-400W for 30 minutes at a time doing heavy exercise doesn’t add much to your overall energy need by itself.
But the other thing you spend a lot of energy doing is just ordinary cellular repair, replacement, and reconstruction. Stuff is being torn down and rebuilt all the time – all your epithelial cells, such as your skin, cornea, lining of your gut, blood – is on a regular schedule of replacement. Your bone is constantly shifting around. Every time you get sick there are tons of immune cells to generate, then plenty of your own cells that got snuffed to chop up, dispose of, and replace. Many have noticed that exercise seems to boost energy consumption for some time after the exercise – it may be that there is lots of repair and replacement and strengthening going on, demanding energy.
In short, the best possible way to boost your energy needs is lower the temperature of your environment. I’ve read that Arctic explorers used to have to budget 5000 calories a day just to avoid losing weight. Of course, this is not very comfortable. Another approach is to get sick a lot. Also not very desirable. Exercise seems most palatable. But its dominant effect does not seem to be the actual energy it requires, which isn’t that much more. Probably it is the stress on the body that causes it to adapt usefully, and these adaptations lead willy nilly to a healthier biochemistry with associated improved insulin sensitivity and decreased flab. Who knows? It’s complex.