Where Does The Body Get Its Energy And Stamina From?
- Dr Joel Yong
- Jun 20, 2020
- 7 min read
What are the biochemical processes involved?
It is a common sight to see people slumped over or being one with the floor at the end of an exhausting workout. That’s exactly what I would do myself!
The inertia becomes too much to overcome. It’s difficult to stay up straight. COLLAPSE!
The problem is that our bodies somehow tend to change as we get older, and we find ourselves getting weaker. We can’t seem to do what we did at age 35 compared to when we were 25. We can’t stay up that late — we need sleep. We can’t maintain our stamina or energy levels when participating in a group sport activity. That can be caused by a plethora of different sub-optimal maintenance tactics that we’re bombarding our body with, such as:
Stress/overwork.
A poor diet.
Insufficient sleep.
But at the same time, as I did mention in my previous article, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness — The Thing That We All Love To Hate After Working Out:
And we know that ain’t good — after all, insufficient exercise, as I have discussed in Four Ways That Our Lifestyle Affects Our Immune System, doesn’t do much good for our immune system. And with a suboptimal immune system, the inflammation signalling from the immune system can get dysregulated more easily, opening up more avenues for one to develop a chronic inflammatory disease.
We tend to blame our lower energy levels on “aging” or “getting older”, but a lot of that can be pinpointed on the maintenance that we provide to our bodies.
Where do we obtain our energy from?
Our body is a mish-mash of 38 trillion live cells that function as biological factories. As I mention in The Science Of Ketosis:
It is a common fact that our cells use the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA, also known as the citric acid cycle or the Krebs cycle) to generate energy from this molecule known as acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA). Acetyl-CoA is oxidized in the mitochondria to synthesize adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the biochemical energy currency that is used by the cells for energy purposes. Acetyl-CoA can be obtained from glucose (carbohydrates) or ketones (from fatty acids), which we do consume in our diets.
The body preferentially uses glucose as a source of acetyl-CoA, but when there is a scarcity of carbohydrates in the diet, the body shifts its source of energy derivation towards the ketones.
During the process of acetyl-CoA oxidation, I illustrate in It Only Takes That Tiny Electron To Cause Those Health Problems how electrons are transferred in the process of energy generation within the cell’s energy generating units, also known as the mitochondria:
Acetyl-CoA then gets shuttled into the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA, also known as the citric acid cycle or the Krebs cycle), which produces both the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (or NADH) and the reduced form of flavin adenine dinucleotide (or FADH2). These NADH and FADH2 molecules are then oxidised by the electron transport chain. Electrons are removed from NADH (to form NAD+) and FADH (to form FAD), and the electrons are transported along the chain by Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). Protons are pumped from the mitochondrial matrix to the intermembrane space to form a proton gradient, and the electrons are finally used to reduce molecular oxygen to water.
In the mitochondria, the ATP synthase enzyme then makes use of the proton gradient to synthesise adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is where cells derive their energy from.
This process of ATP synthesis is known as oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). From there, the cell builds up a storage bank of ATP that it can use: the cleavage of a phosphate group from ATP generates a dose of biochemical energy in the cell that can be converted into biomechanical energy for body movements.
Of course, the number of steps in this sequential process of energy generation indicates that there are many areas that can go wrong.
Electron leakage
Our cell mitochondria can ultimately become dysfunctional, as I explain in Vanity and Aging As Linked By The Same Chemical, Really:
Unfortunately, as we age, the power plants in our cells, or the mitochondria (which are the energy generators that power a cell), tend to face higher levels of mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondrial dysfunction results in the production of a greater amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are highly reactive and pro-oxidation.
The electron transport chain, for instance, relies on the activity of CoQ10 to continuously shuttle electrons through the electron transport chain in the mitochondria.
Can these electrons leak out? Yes. As it is said in this book, “superoxide is the primary oxygen free radical produced in mitochondria via the slippage of an electron from the ETC to molecular oxygen during OXPHOS.” Superoxide is also a highly reactive ROS that can react with just about anything and oxidise it.
But the important point to note is: When the electrons are leaking out, then how much less ATP are we producing, and how much more ROS damage is our body going to sustain? And therefore, how much less energy can we use, and how does that contribute to our energy and stamina levels on a day in, day out basis?
ROS damage
A majority of the ROS that dysfunctional mitochondria form are thankfully swiftly neutralised by this antioxidant in our cell known as glutathione.
Glutathione exists in cells in 2 states: reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG). The ratio of GSH to GSSG determines cell redox status of cells. Healthy cells at rest have a GSH/GSSG ratio >100 while the ratio drops to 1 to 10 in cells exposed to oxidant stress. Glutathione is also recognized as a thiol buffer maintaining sulfhydryl groups of many proteins in their reduced form. Glutathione is produced exclusively in the cytosol and actively pumped into mitochondria.
It is an endogenous antioxidant that is produced within each cell, and it is cycled back and forth between GSSG and GSH by an enzyme known as glutathione reductase. Not only does it possess antioxidant activity, but it is also responsible for a lot of detoxification pathways in the body:
Glutathione is involved in the detoxification of both xenobiotic and endogenous compounds. It facilitates excretion from cells (Hg), facilitates excretion from body (POPs, Hg) and directly neutralizes (POPs, many oxidative chemicals). Glutathione facilitates the plasma membrane transport of toxins by at least 4 different mechanisms, the most important of which is formation of glutathione S-conjugates. Low levels of glutathione and/or transferase activity are also associated with chronic exposure to chemical toxins and alcohol, cadmium exposure, AIDS/HIV, macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Glutathione directly scavenges diverse oxidants: superoxide anion, hydroxyl radical, nitric oxide, and carbon radicals. Glutathione catalytically detoxifies: hydroperoxides, peroxynitrites, and lipid peroxides. Another way glutathione protects cells from oxidants is through recycling of vitamins C and E.
Not bad. It detoxifies lipid peroxides, so perhaps one can get away with consuming rancid fish oil? It detoxifies nitric oxide and peroxynitrites, so it could help with hypertension too? It also recycles Vitamin C, so would that aid in supporting one’s immune system too?
But we have to note that we have to support its production endogenously from within the cell. GSH is a tripeptide molecule that contains 3 amino acids: cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid. If we were to consume it orally or via an injection, it doesn’t do much. And that’s because the half-life of GSH in blood plasma is only at maximum a few minutes — meaning that it only takes that few minutes for the viable concentration of GSH to decrease by 50% in the blood plasma.
Therefore, consuming a GSH supplement or injecting GSH into one’s blood ain’t as effective as the case of stimulating the cells to manufacture more of it.
But what is the biochemical pathway that regulates GSH synthesis?
We have the nuclear factor-erythroid 2 p45-related factor 2 (nrf2, or another shorter description for nrf2 is “nuclear respiratory factor 2”) pathway, which “is the primary transcription factor protecting cells from oxidative stress by regulating cytoprotective genes, including the antioxidant glutathione (GSH) pathway.”
Not only does the nrf2 pathway support GSH production — it is also involved in mitochondrial renewal. It supports autophagy and can also protect our spinal discs from degeneration.
One pathway has so much control on cell renewal, and as I have discussed previously, the ROS scavenging capability of GSH does make the nrf2 pathway a good counterbalance to the pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway. If we do have leaky electrons, we also need to be able to deal with the by-products of the leaky electrons satisfactorily! Otherwise, when NF-κB runs awry, more problems can happen, especially in the arena of chronic inflammatory conditions. The least of our worries would be a poorer stamina by then. But people with chronic inflammatory conditions would naturally be predisposed towards having lower stamina levels too.
What we eat is the easiest thing that we can change up.
We can see what can be done just in our diet alone. On the micronutrient level:
There are at least 4 nutrients that support the function of the nrf2 pathway in the body. Such nutrients include resveratrol, curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and quercetin.
The availability of the amino acid cysteine is the rate-limiting step in glutathione synthesis. Hence, N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a derivative of cysteine, is used as a medical treatment for paracetamol (acetaminophen) overdose/poisoning, where the internal synthesis of GSH with higher doses of cysteine is much higher and helps to detoxify the paracetamol overdose more quickly. (Note: glutathione supplements are not a prescribed treatment!)
Coenzyme Q10 for supporting electron transport in the electron transport chain.
Whereas on the macronutrient level, carbohydrates, proteins and fats provide the sources of energy for our cells to obtain acetyl-CoA from.
And that was what I did as I embarked on my year long weight loss programme (What I Learnt From A One Year Weight Loss Experiment).
But I had a good dose of cheat code supplements that aided all that. Here's what I used primarily, and here's what I added for an extra energy dose.
This article was originally published in Medium.
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