Metabolism
Introduction
Metabolism is biochemical system that the body uses to convert food to energy in order to maintain life and can be fully simulated at genome scale. Metabolism is partly genetic and largely outside of one's control and changing it is always a matter of an ongoing considerable debate.
In biology, metabolism is the only system that can be simulated at genome scale and is the best indicator for the cell's physiological state and the biggest biological network fully described so far.
Nutrition is key when it comes to metabolism because food help building the body and contributes to the repair of body tissues, and also necessary for its efficient functioning. Some perfect nutrition examples will be carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, in addition to protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and vitamins.
Metabolism can be divided into two important categories: First, Catabolism: which releases energy from breaking down things and uses compounds ( usually larger) and break them into smaller compounds, and this process helps into creating energy. Catabolism helps the human body to stay active by providing enough energy and meet the body’s needs from cellular processes to body movements.
Catabolic-specific work is for example breaking down the Polysaccharides into monosaccharides ( Starch into Glucose ) and Nucleic into Nucleotides or proteins into amino acids. The body breaks down the nutrients and releases the energy that get stored in molecules of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the body. The energy stored in ATP is the result of the anabolic work. Second, Anabolism: helps the body to maintain all tissue and grow new cells with the use simple chemicals and molecules to manufacture many finished products such as the growth and mineralization of bone and increases in muscle mass.
The anabolic hormones included are the hormone of growth, insulin, and testosterone.
Metabolic systems biology
In metabolic systems biology, the value of modeling cell metabolism is not only explanatory of a biological process but also predictive.
The first examples of metabolic systems biology appeared in 1999 and were focused on modeling, connecting, and simulating several cellular processes. Whole-cell modeling, named the grand challenge of the 21st century, is an active area of research.
The methods to model a metabolic system are plenty, the most common ones according to BioMed research international are steady-state analysis such as ‘ FBA’ and it involves a set of linear equations, while kinetic simulations involve ordinary differential equations (ODEs).
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Each variable represents the variation of a metabolite concentration, in a dynamic or steady state, where the concentration depends on the rates of the reactions that produce and consume that metabolite. Kinetic models do not assume steady state and therefore are able to model highly dynamic mechanisms, including allosteric and posttranslational regulation, metabolite concentrations, and thermodynamics. Such ODE-based systems contain a large number of equations (differential or algebraic) and require unique kinetic parameter values.
They are highly effective at predicting the behavior of small systems where sufficient experimental data can be collected for model calibration and parameter estimation, but for large systems, the use of kinetic modeling remains challenging because of the increasing demand for systems-level genome-scale analyses has recently led to the huge use of constraint-based steady-state models and their unsteady-state extensions.
A researcher from BioMed Research international have reviewed and covered 15 years of human metabolic modeling (Angione, 2019 ). The method used was based on the research described above that showed and covered these linked chemical reactions happening inside a cell constantly to keep the cell and body alive. Metabolism is a strong indicator for the cell’s physiological state and is an important element in a number of diseases, including diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. The multiple layers of biological organization called Omics is used to characterize individual fundamental things and study their interactions with each other. The author also mentioned that it has become very important and proven affective for biomedical applications to study metabolisms when researching about diseases and aspects of health. Mapping protein expression onto a generic human model is useful in the reconstruction of tissue models such as brain, adipocytes, breast cancer, heart, kidney, myocytes, and hepatocytes. In 2012, a research effort by Karr. provided the first whole-cell computational model of the life cycle of a small pathogenic bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium. The model includes metabolism, replication of the genome, and cell division.
Metabolism and health
“The absolute best way for someone to change his or her total metabolic rate is by being more active,” says Janet Walberg Rankin, Ph.D., professor of human nutrition, food and exercise at Virginia Tech. Many time the metabolism is all about luck, where the lucky people are able to burn energy from food at a faster rate and are able to eat more than others and not gain extra weight easily mostly due to their genetics.
Boosting metabolism is very important and mostly considered healthy. Although, there are many ways to do so, such as exercising, where it increases metabolism by increasing and maintaining the muscle mass, which leads to burning more calories than fat.
It is also proven that some foods are more likely to help increasing the metabolism than others. Such as increasing the protein portion every meal does increase metabolism because of the extra calories required to digest and process the nutrients. Protein increases metabolic rate by 15 to 30 percent and more with 20 percent than carbs and fats. Drinking cold water, drinking green tea is also helpful, in addition to getting enough sleep every night which is essential to ensure that these hormones remain balanced and can prevent a person from overeating, and help their metabolism. Losing 10 percent of initial weight and maintaining that weight is difficult because of metabolic adaptations. This amount of weight loss reduced total energy expenditure 6 calories per kilogram of fat-free mass per day for subjects who had never been obese, and 8 calories for obese subjects, According to, highly publicized Rockefeller University study by R. Leibel, M. Rosenbaum, and J. Hirsch in New York.
“Healthy Weight Journal” stated that resting metabolism and non-resting energy expenditure each dropped 3 to 4 calories per kg of fat-free mass per day in both groups. (Fat-free mass averaged between 53 and 64.1 kg for the subject groups, suggesting a drop in daily calorie expenditure of 300 to 500 calories.) For a person normally eating 2,500 calories per day, a 10 percent weight loss would predict an excess of 375 calories, says the report. It also says that when the subjects gained 10 percent above their initial weight, total energy expenditure increased 8 and 9 calories per kg of fat-free mass per day. The thermic effect of feeding increased by I to 2 calories and non-resting energy expenditure increased by about 8 to 9 calories. All subjects, 18 obese and 23 nonobese were studied at their initial weight and after one or more changes in weight maintained for at least 14 days. Smokers did not differ from nonsmokers in any measures. Metabolic changes were even stronger during the weight loss or gain process. This natural regulating system with its 'fine balance,' added to increased hunger or dysphoria, may account for the poor long-term results of weight loss programs, say the researchers. However, despite their striking findings, they conclude with the 'obligatory last paragraph,' so typical of women's magazines and the scientific press, urging that efforts to lose weight continues.
Conclusion
Metabolism is nowadays considered diagnostic of the phenotype, and therefore arguably the best indicator of the functional state of a cell. Metabolism can also be used to prioritize genes and assess their function and the role of gene perturbations including knockouts. Without such integrated analysis, a gene may incorrectly be regarded as important only due to its highly variable expression value.
Metabolism is simply some chemical transformations by way of cellular respiration, and anabolism within the cells of every living organism. The reactions of the enzymes allow organisms to grow and maintain their structures, in order for them to respond to their environments and meet their daily needs.
Energy is necessary for every human being and helping metabolism with exercising is almost necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle and a more active daily life because it is a physical act of low to high intensity that relies principally on the energy generating process involving, or requiring free oxygen to sufficiently meet energy demands during exercise. However, certain medical conditions can mess with the metabolic rate, such as thyroid for example, would make a person burn energy faster but could lead to serious health issues in a long run.
Work Cited
- Angione, C. (2019). Human Systems Biology and Metabolic Modelling: A Review—From Disease Metabolism to Precision Medicine. BioMed Research International, 1–16. https://doi-org.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2443/10.1155/2019/8304260
- Alliksaar, M. (2001). Metabolism in A-Life: Reply to Boden. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 52(1). https://doi-org.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2443/10.1093/bjps/52.1.131
- Metabolism slows with weight loss. (1995). Healthy Weight Journal, 9(3), 45. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2443/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9601151214&site=ehost-live
- Genuis, S. J., & Kyrillos, E. (2017). The chemical disruption of human metabolism. Toxicology Mechanisms & Methods, 27(7), 477–500. https://doi-org.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2443/10.1080/15376516.2017.1323986
- The Bottom Line on Boosting Metabolism: Exercise Works Best. (2004). Environmental Nutrition, 27(6), 7. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2443/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=13516317&site=ehost-live
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