Cellular respiration is super important for providing energy to different parts of our body. Different tissues need different amounts of energy, depending on how active they are.
Muscle Tissue: Muscles need a lot of energy, especially when we're exercising. During intense workouts, they can produce a lot of ATP, which is like fuel for our cells.
Brain: The brain is only about 2% of our body weight, but it uses around 20% of our total energy. It needs a constant supply of glucose, which it mainly gets through a process called aerobic respiration.
Adipose Tissue: This is fat tissue, and it doesn't need as much energy. Its main job is to store energy instead of producing it quickly.
Glycolysis: This is the first step in breaking down glucose (sugar). It produces 2 ATP molecules from each glucose. If there's no oxygen, glycolysis can still make energy quickly, but it doesn’t make as much overall.
Krebs Cycle: After glycolysis, the process continues with the Krebs cycle. Each time a molecule called acetyl-CoA enters this cycle, it produces 3 NADH, 1 FADH₂, and 1 GTP. In total, this can result in 36-38 ATP molecules per glucose when oxygen is available.
These differences help our cells get the energy they need based on how active or demanding different parts of our bodies are at any time.
Cellular respiration is super important for providing energy to different parts of our body. Different tissues need different amounts of energy, depending on how active they are.
Muscle Tissue: Muscles need a lot of energy, especially when we're exercising. During intense workouts, they can produce a lot of ATP, which is like fuel for our cells.
Brain: The brain is only about 2% of our body weight, but it uses around 20% of our total energy. It needs a constant supply of glucose, which it mainly gets through a process called aerobic respiration.
Adipose Tissue: This is fat tissue, and it doesn't need as much energy. Its main job is to store energy instead of producing it quickly.
Glycolysis: This is the first step in breaking down glucose (sugar). It produces 2 ATP molecules from each glucose. If there's no oxygen, glycolysis can still make energy quickly, but it doesn’t make as much overall.
Krebs Cycle: After glycolysis, the process continues with the Krebs cycle. Each time a molecule called acetyl-CoA enters this cycle, it produces 3 NADH, 1 FADH₂, and 1 GTP. In total, this can result in 36-38 ATP molecules per glucose when oxygen is available.
These differences help our cells get the energy they need based on how active or demanding different parts of our bodies are at any time.