Metabolism is a term used to describe the chemical reactions that take place in living cells, providing energy for life processes and the synthesis of cellular material. These reactions are enzyme-mediated and allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism can be divided into two types of activities that occur simultaneously: anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism is the process of building and storing molecules, while catabolism is the process of breaking down molecules to release energy for body functions.
Some key points about metabolism include:
- Metabolism involves the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes, the conversion of food to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates, and the elimination of metabolic wastes.
- Metabolic reactions are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed through a series of steps into another chemical, each step being facilitated by a specific enzyme.
- Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable reactions that require energy and will not occur by themselves, by coupling them to spontaneous reactions that release energy.
- Metabolism is a balancing act involving two kinds of activities that go on at the same time: building up body tissues and energy stores (anabolism) and breaking down body tissues and energy stores to get more fuel for body functions (catabolism) .
- The chemical reactions of metabolism are almost the same in all living organisms, including animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi.
- Metabolism is a complicated chemical process that involves the synthesis of many catalysts that mediate chemical reactions throughout our body, which has its origins in DNA.
There is no specific information about the positive or negative effects of metabolism, nor about the ingredients or materials involved in it.
