From the same mind whose research propelled the notion that "sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little," comes a groundbreaking discovery set to turn a sedentary lifestyle on its ear: The soleus muscle in ...
Sep 21, 2022
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Heart failure is often identified only when the heart has already deteriorated. This is in large part because the cause is unknown for about 70% of people who experience heart failure.
Feb 13, 2023
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Exposure to a synthetic chemical found widely in the environment is linked to non-viral hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the Keck School ...
Aug 8, 2022
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An estimated 40% of the global adult population have high blood pressure, or hypertension, which puts people at risk of cardiovascular disease and other dangerous health conditions. Recent studies suggest that probiotics ...
Oct 19, 2023
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Calorie restriction improves metabolic and immune responses that help determine both how long a person lives and how many years of good health they enjoy, a new study shows.
Feb 10, 2022
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It has long been known that obesity is an inflammatory disease, i.e. a chronic defensive reaction of the body to stress caused by excess nutrients. Based on this knowledge, a group of researchers led by Nabil Djouder, head ...
Apr 15, 2021
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Adults with obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease did not see additional reductions in intrahepatic triglyceride while on a time-restricted eating regimen compared to subjects on a daily calorie-restriction diet. This ...
The year 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of a fundamental discovery that's taught in every biochemistry textbook. In 1921, German physician Otto Warburg observed that cancer cells harvest energy from glucose sugar in a strangely ...
Jan 22, 2021
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Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a common diabetes medication, metformin, as a possible treatment for atrial fibrillation.
Oct 11, 2022
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New Cleveland Clinic research showed that erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, is associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Findings were published today in Nature Medicine.
Feb 27, 2023
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Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories. Catabolism breaks down organic matter, for example to harvest energy in cellular respiration. Anabolism, on the other hand, uses energy to construct components of cells such as proteins and nucleic acids.
The chemical reactions of metabolism are organized into metabolic pathways, in which one chemical is transformed into another by a sequence of enzymes. Enzymes are crucial to metabolism because they allow organisms to drive desirable but thermodynamically unfavorable reactions by coupling them to favorable ones, and because they act as catalysts to allow these reactions to proceed quickly and efficiently. Enzymes also allow the regulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in the cell's environment or signals from other cells.
The metabolism of an organism determines which substances it will find nutritious and which it will find poisonous. For example, some prokaryotes use hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient, yet this gas is poisonous to animals. The speed of metabolism, the metabolic rate, also influences how much food an organism will require.
A striking feature of metabolism is the similarity of the basic metabolic pathways between even vastly different species. For example, the set of carboxylic acids that are best known as the intermediates in the citric acid cycle are present in all organisms, being found in species as diverse as the unicellular bacteria Escherichia coli and huge multicellular organisms like elephants. These striking similarities in metabolism are most likely the result of the high efficiency of these pathways, and of their early appearance in evolutionary history.
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