Glucose, my Cruel Mistress.

Or, what happens when there is too much biochemistry.

So, we eat. We eat to give our body energy. You would think that something this straightforward would be simple, but no. It's not, in a big way. And, it's only like 10 freaking percent of the material on the next biochem quiz, but I'm not bitter. And it gives me a lovely ridiculous analogy!

Specifically, we eat carbohydrates, which are turned into glucose in our stomachs, and then absorbed into our blood and carried everywhere, because our cells transform glucose into ATP, which is the cell's unit of energy, via glycolysis.

ENTER THE ANALOGY (stay with me here)

So glucose = my mother's electronic transfer of money into my checking account. It's great, because I now have more money, but I can't actually spend it at the local farm. Because the farm doesn't take checks or credit cards, and neither do your cells. You have to turn your electronic money into cash (or ATP) because this is what the farmer (your cells) uses to pay the rent. You do this via an ATM machine, or glycolysis.

So whenever your cells need a little spending money/energy (ATP), they go to the ATM (use glycolysis) to get some from the checking account (glucose). But cells are just like me- I get one big transfer each month, the cells get a pile of glucose each meal. You don't want all that extra glucose/money just floating around- a thief (the kidney) might steal your debit card, and spend (pee) all your money (glucose). And then you would be broke (dead) for the rest of the month (forever).

So along comes insulin! Insulin is released when there is lots of glucose in the blood. It causes the uptake of glucose into the liver and muscle via glycogen synthesis, where it is stored in a more stable form, glycogen. In our fancy analogy, the money in the checking account (glucose) is transferred (by glycogen synthase) to the savings account (glycogen in liver and muscle) in response to insulin (your good sense).

So now your body is trucking along after its meal, and it uses up all its free glucose. Aka, it's the middle of the month, and I've eaten out one too many times. Now I need to buy groceries from the farmer, and your cells still want to keep living, like the pesky things they are. But just like in my real life, you can't withdraw cash from your savings account. (Electronic transfers only. ING Orange. Over 1% interest. Check it out people.) You have to first transfer it to your checking account.

So- You need more ATP (money), and for that you need Glucose (money in your checking account) but you've used it all up. Glucagon signals a need for more glucose, so you go to your liver and muscle for glycogen (savings account). You convert your glycogen into glucose via gluconeogenesis (electronic transfer from savings to checkings), and then convert the glucose to ATP via glycolysis (get money from checking via ATM).

YAY!

Of course it is too late for me to get to the interesting disease parts, but that will come tomorrow.