PaulAdara What’s going on in your body right now?
Your answer might be that you are sore, tired, hungry or that you don’t know how you feel.
If you could, however, magically see at the microscopic cellular level, you’d find out that it’s a beehive of extensive activities that are very remarkable. More like an open-air market than a quiet room.
Whatever state you’re in, walking, running, sleeping, having sex, or whatever, your body is actively performing chemical processes that your very life and functional status depend on.
This chemical process is called metabolism.
This is a chemical process that takes place in each of our cells in our body. A process that transforms food into energy that our body needs to do anything. From thinking to moving and growing, thousands of these metabolic reactions take place at the same time and they are all under the regulation of our body with the goal of keeping our cells healthy and working.
So, if I ask the question again: What’s going on in your body right now?
I guess you can answer correctly that: A lot is going on. A whole lot indeed.
How Does Metabolism work?
First, all of the chemical processes that take place inside of our cells are collectively called cell metabolism.
After eating any food, the digestive system, through enzymes, breaks that food into smaller parts.
Carbohydrates are broken down into sugars.
Proteins are broken down into smaller cells called amino acids.
Fats are broken down into fatty acids.
The body then uses all these smaller materials as energy sources. These smaller, broken-down materials are taken from the digestive system into the blood by specialized processes. They are then distributed back to the cells to be used for cellular maintenance, regeneration, or rebuilding. And, in some cases, they are stored for future use.
This brings us to the types of metabolism.
There are essentially two types of metabolism. These two types are working in the body at the same time.
Anabolism can be seen as a constructive metabolism. It is the process of building and storing. In this process, small molecules transform into larger, more complex molecules like carbohydrates, protein, and amino acids.
Catabolism, on the other hand, is destructive metabolism. It is the process that produces all the energy needed by the cells for normal functioning. In this process, large molecules like carbohydrates and fat break down to release energy. This energy, then powered anabolism, heats the body enabling the muscles to contract and the body to move. Catabolism leads to the body’s release of waste products through the skin, kidneys, lungs, and intestines.
Again, what’s going on in your body right now?
A lot more than you can see or even imagine.
Now let’s talk about Metabolism and Weight Loss:
But first, what does it mean to have a slow or fast metabolism?
You and I probably know someone who complains of eating very little and yet is unable to shed weight. They sometimes even gain more weight. There are others who eat everything in sight and yet barely gain any weight. We tend to associate this with a slow or fast metabolic rate.
These two situations obviously raise very important questions.
- What is the role of metabolism in weight gain or weight loss?
- Is metabolic rate determined by genetics? If so,
- Can a slow metabolic rate be sped up through exercise, drugs, or certain foods?
- Is metabolism’s affect on weight just a myth?
- Is weight gain or loss purely due to calories in and calories out?
The answers to these questions are intriguing and it’s a mix of nature and nurture.
It may interest you to know that skinny people tend to be more active during the day than overweight or obese people. We are not talking of obvious physical activities or exercise, rather, we are talking about non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT. This is a component of total daily energy expenditure.
One of the ways skinny people burn energy through NEAT is through fidgeting more. They tend to be in motion even when engaged in non-exercise activities. It is currently unclear whether this tendency is learned or genetically programmed, but it can add or take away tons of calories each day in skinny people.
Overweight and obese people, on average, tend to use more energy than skinny people on a daily basis. This is because it takes more effort to move around. However, they tend to be more sedentary which then makes it harder to lose weight.
So, what is the role of metabolism in weight gain or weight loss?
The answer is: It plays a huge role, but it’s not the only story. To help understand the fact that it’s not the only cause of the worsening obesity epidemic, we will need to look at history.
Bear in mind that our most recent ancestors were not that obese or overweight. And, since genes do not change that quickly, then something else explains the rising tide of obesity and weight gain in our modern world. Very obvious reasons are a change in diet, introductions of new chemicals in our food, especially in the form of thousands of sugary drinks, and too little or no exercise.
Age is another cause and new studies are suggesting that metabolism reaches a peak earlier in life and then slows down much later than previously thought.
It is, therefore, difficult to narrow weight gain or loss to just metabolism. Between the truth and the myth is the fact that obesity in some individuals is not due to bad luck, medical or genetic disease, or even uncontrolled external factors.
Regardless of whether your metabolism is fast or slow, our bodies are designed to store energy as fat cells. If you, therefore, take in too much excess food than your body needs and is able to use up, the excess will be stored as fat and you will gain weight. On the other hand, if you eat less and your body is able to burn it off through activities, you will lose weight.
Our bodies often sense a lack of food as starvation and, in response, it slows down our metabolic rate which means fewer calories are burned making weight loss a difficult process.
The final words are that metabolism affects weight, but it is not so straight-forward. It is complicated.
Before we wrap up, let’s talk about Metabolism and Diabetes:
People with and without diabetes have the same metabolism, except for the dysfunction of the insulin hormone in people with diabetes.
After eating food, carbohydrates are broken down into sugar and this sugar is taken into the blood. At that point, the pancreas releases insulin, which then helps the sugar to absorb into the cells for energy use – remember the process of metabolism explained earlier.
In a person with diabetes, the body either doesn’t respond to insulin or does not produce enough insulin. Sugar needs insulin to get into the cells from where it will be used, however, it cannot get into the cells in a dysfunctional insulin state and, therefore, it accumulates in the blood. This can lead to chronically high blood sugar levels. And this condition is called Diabetes.
There are two major types of diabetes.
Type 1 and Type 2
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the body attacks and destroys cells in your pancreas, called beta cells, which produce insulin. It is usually diagnosed between childhood and young adult. In type 1, the individual does not make insulin.
Type 2 Diabetes, on the other hand, is due to the body being insulin resistant. The individual is actually making insulin, but making very little. In type 2, the cells stop responding to insulin, and, therefore, the blood sugar accumulates in the blood and becomes elevated.
Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common type of diabetes, accounting for between 90 and 95 percent of individuals with diabetes.
When the blood sugar remains elevated, but not enough to meet diabetes criteria, it is called pre-diabetes. It often precedes diabetes and early intervention at this stage can sometimes reverse the condition or keep it stable.
Now does metabolism affect diabetes? The answer is yes it does, but indirectly.
Because metabolism affects obesity, as discussed earlier, obesity or weight gain is a risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes. Metabolism, therefore, affects diabetes. Obesity is thought to increase the risk of diabetes by at least 6 times, regardless of genetic predisposition.
Also, there is a condition called metabolic syndrome. People who are obese or overweight are more likely to develop this syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of five risk factors that increase your risk of developing stroke, diabetes type 2, and heart disease.
These risk factors include:
- High LDL cholesterol level, otherwise call bad cholesterol
- High triglycerides level
- Excess waist fat
- Insulin resistance
- Blood pressure higher than 130/85 mmHg
- More of this in another video.
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Thanks for watching and see you on the next video.