GMA Biology
organized (not written) by Julie Thompson Seal coachjulieseal@yahoo.com
Lemonade from Lemons..........well......ok.....energy from sugar.
All parts of the body (muscles, brain, heart, and liver) need energy to work. This energy comes from the food we eat.
Our bodies digest the food we eat by mixing it with fluids (acids and enzymes) in the stomach. When the stomach digests food, the carbohydrate (sugars and starches) in the food breaks down into another type of sugar, called glucose.
The stomach and small intestines absorb the glucose and then release it into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, glucose can be used immediately for energy or stored in our bodies, to be used later.
However, our bodies need insulin in order to use or store glucose for energy. Without insulin, glucose stays in the bloodstream, keeping blood sugar levels high
Insulin is a hormone made by beta cells in the pancreas. Beta cells are very sensitive to the amount of glucose in the bloodstream. Normally beta cells check the blood's glucose level every few seconds and sense when they need to speed up or slow down the amount of insulin they're making and releasing. When someone eats something high in carbohydrates, like a piece of bread, the glucose level in the blood rises and the beta cells trigger the pancreas to release more insulin into the bloodstream.
Insulin receptors are present in the cell membranes of somatic (bodily) cells. When insulin is produced by the pancreas, the receptors act as key/lock for the sugar or glucose to enter the cell through specialized glucose doors or channels.
The liver acts as the body’s glucose (or fuel) reservoir, and helps to keep your circulating blood sugar levels and other body fuels steady and constant. The liver both stores and manufactures glucose depending upon the body’s need. The need to store or release glucose is primarily signaled by the hormones insulin and glucagon.
During a meal, your liver will store sugar, or glucose, as glycogen for a later time when your body needs it. The high levels of insulin and suppressed levels of glucagon during a meal promote the storage of glucose as glycogen.
When you’re not eating – especially overnight or between meals, the body has to make its own sugar. The liver supplies sugar or glucose by turning glycogen into glucose in a process called glycogenolysis.The liver also can manufacture necessary sugar or glucose by harvesting amino acids, waste products and fat byproducts. This process is called gluconeogenesis.
Glucose - Sugar molecule C6H12O6 that all food is broken down to render. The glucose is then aborbed through the villi of your intestine into the blood stream.
Glucagon - the hormone that tells the liver to release glucose.
Glycogen - storage form of glucose
Insulin - the hormone that unlocks the cell membrane to allow in glucose.
High Blood sugar - not enough glucose in the cells, still in the blood.
Low Blood sugar - no sugar in the blood to metabolize, and none in the cell either.
Glucolysis - The breakdown of glucose to make atp/energy.
Cellular respiration - the chemical interaction of glucose, and oxygen and produces carbond dioxide, water and energy.
Anaerobic respiration - when glucose is broken down in the absence of sufficient oxygen, producing an oxygen debt byproduct known as lactic acid which is painful and can only be remedied by intake of more oxygen. Aerobic respiration produces pyruvate and anaerobic respiration produces lactate. In bacteria, anaerobic respiration produces fermentation and is the process used to produce alchohol.
ATP - adenosine triphosphate or a nucleoside that acts as "cell money" or the currency of electron transfer in cells. ATP is produced in the mitochondria of the cell and its production is why we call the mitochondria the "power house of the cell".
Kreb Cycle and Electron Transport Chain - Processes the body employs to extract or produce as much of the potential 38 ATP contained in one Glucose molecule.
