What is the biochemistry of the burning of fat?

[Neil9327]

When you exercise, you lose weight. Which is why fat people are often encouraged to go running to lose the flab. But what is the biochemical process that occurs here?

My guess, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that when you exercise your muscles turn Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) into Adensosine diphosphate (ADP) in turn releasing energy to propel you along. To complete this "krebs cycle", as I believe it is called, the body metabolises sugar in the bloodstream to convert ADP back into ATP so that the proportions of these two chemicals don't become too uneven.

Then when there is a lack of sugar, the body starts using fat to create ATP, thus burning it.

 

So the question is what chemical has to be present in either increasing quantities or reduced quantities as a result of sugar levels running low in order to cause fat cells to start to be metabolised.

And also what are the waste products of this process?

 

 

where am I going with this question?

Why not offer a solution to fat people such that instead of having to go to the gym to keep fit, they hook themselves up to a blood machine every night (aka to a dialysis machine) to do three things with the blood:

1. Add to it the chemical/hormone that causes fat to burn.

2. Convert any excess levels of ATP (caused by the burning of the fat) to ADP, so as to keep the levels of these chemicals even thoughout the night.

3. Remove any waste products of the fat burning process so as not to overwhelm the kidneys.

There may be a requirement to add extra oxygen as well.

 

Any thoughts?

[mattbimbo]

you are so wrong, I don't know where to begin.

 

I could start by telling you that without fat stores we wouldn't last the night.

[Mercurial]

The real issue at hand is that if calories used > calories consumed you lose weight. If you eat less in regular portions and exercise more, the calorie difference increases and you lose weight. That being said people are lazy and that being said eight loss is a lot more complicated than that. For one, when you run out of carbohydrates you may go to glycogen break down, protein metabolism, and fat metabolism and more likely they're all occuring simultaneously.

Now I've heard but seen no proof that L-carnitine is a useful supplement since it helps transport lipids into the mitochondria for metabolism but that's just one factor.

In short:

1) hormones/chemical signals are not going to help without some side effects

 

2) ATP is the fundamental energy source for ALL cells. Without this the cell would die. Even fat when metabolised has most of the energy within it's structure converted to ATP (the rest is heat and some is coupled to other reactions.

 

3) I recommend getting a good biochemistry book, I'm partial to Voet, or look around on google under fat metabolism and learn a bit about cell biolgy and biochemistry before you develop this idea a little further. There's really a whole lot going on here besides hormones, sugar metabolism and what not. In fact, another thing to remember is fat is essentially an energy storage molecule which was essential for survival when we didn't know when our next meal was coming (think before grocery stores, food surplus and domesticated animals). So in essence metabolism is what keeps us alive and is a very complicated process. Learn a bit mroe and then you can work out your idea a lil better. Hope this helps:-)

[Neil9327]

you are so wrong' date=' I don't know where to begin.

 

I could start by telling you that without fat stores we wouldn't last the night.[/quote']

 

First Thank you to Mercurial. It sounds like you think the idea might work, but it is complicated, and there would have to be many safeguards to ensure the levels of critical chemicals aren't adversly affected.

 

MattBimbo: I appreciate I might be wrong, and that's why I made this post on this board. If I was sure I was right I wouldn't have made the post, but instead start investing some money developing the technology.

I am not suggesting that all fat be removed, only that which makes us look fat.

 

If this idea worked it would be very popular because people could eat what they liked and do no exercise at all, and still remain slim. Of course a lack of exercise and bad diet will have many other adverse health effects, but people would be able to make their own decision on this knowing the effects.

Indeed perhaps people could eat chocolate and burgers while on "dialysis", and as soon as the fat enters the bloodstream it is removed before it has a chance to become deposited around your belly etc

[mattbimbo]

Mercurial: I'm partial to Voet

Me too.

 

Neil9327:Indeed perhaps people could eat chocolate and burgers while on "dialysis", and as soon as the fat enters the bloodstream it is removed before it has a chance to become deposited around your belly etc

 

are you aware of the side-effects of long-term dialysis? do you appreciate how expensive it is? putting all this aside, fatty-acids circulate the bloodstream as large protein-lipid complexes, as a molecular species they are one of the largest in our blood streams, and since rates of dialysis are inversely proportional to molecular size you are talking days of fractional dialysis to selectively remove LDL, never mind VHDL. (well maybe not months if you have a blood flow rate many fold higher than normal.)

 

correction to above quote: carbohydrates in the blood stream are either burnt up, or if there is excess then they are converted to fats in lipocytes, then due to hormones the lipocytes release the fats into the blood stream. the absorption of fats is equally complex.

[mattbimbo]

of course i could be wrong. maybe this is an original idea that could be important. i mean to develop faster/efficient dialysis machines could contribute a great deal to health care rather than sloth care.

[Bluenoise]

I wouldn't work since ATP isn't transported in the blood stream for the purpose of transporting energy. Energy is transported as sugars and fats and then used to catalyze the production of ATP by the cells that take them up.

[Mercurial]

Are there any threads or somethin online that explains the function of a dialysis machine I'm afraid I'm a bit ignorant in this subject

[Neil9327]

Well of course the word "dialysis" is taken to mean the treatment given to people who have kidneys that have failed. They work by taking blood out of the arm, cleaning it of waste products such as urea, and putting it back into the arm. Just like what the kidneys do.

 

In my case, the machine would take the blood out of the arm, and do something to it to "trick" the fat around one's belly to think that you've just had a strenuous session at the gym, and cause the fat to burn.

 

The key question is what specifically causes fat to burn. Is it just low blood sugar levels, or is it this in combination with other chemicals or hormones.

 

So if you put someone on dialysis every night for a few hours, you could get it to drop your blood sugar levels very low, so cause fat to burn, and then remove the waste products of this burning, be it sugar or ATP or whatever, and then increase blood sugar levels by the morning before you wake up, so you don't feed drained.

[mattbimbo]

at night, and any other time we are not eating and low on glucose, is when the liver converts fats and proteins to glucose for our brains.

 

neil9327, if you are looking into what is behind the burning of fat, i suggest you should look up papers on cachexia. reading literature on tumour-induced cachexia is when i started to understand metabolism in depth, but there are other factors that can cause cachexia.

[zyncod]

Dialysis is a very serious procedure. The patient's life will be shortened far more significantly through the dialysis procedure itself, as well as the heightened risk of infection. Not to mention the stress to the body of rapidly changing blood sugar levels (insulinemia, anyone?). My guess is leptin-based therapy will be far more important in the years to come.

 

Also, getting off your fat ass and getting some exercise.

[Neil9327]

Dialysis is a very serious procedure. The patient's life will be shortened far more significantly through the dialysis procedure itself' date=' as well as the heightened risk of infection. Not to mention the stress to the body of rapidly changing blood sugar levels (insulinemia, anyone?). My guess is leptin-based therapy will be far more important in the years to come.

 

Also, getting off your fat ass and getting some exercise.[/quote']

 

That's a shocker about the dialysis. Why is the patient's life shortened?

I read the thing about leptin on wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptin

 

It looks like fat cells release leptin into the bloodstream and this tells the brain how much of it there is. The article also explains how some people become resistant to the leptin and their brains don't realise how they are getting fatter. But it doesn't explain how the fat itself gets removed.

So I looked up "fatty acid metabolism" on wikipedia

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism

 

and the article says "The breakdown of fat stored in fat cells is known as lipolysis"

 

and "The following hormones induce lipolysis: epinephrine, norepinephrine, glucagon and adrenocorticotropic hormone"

 

Then I clicked on "epinephrine" and it turns out that this is a stress hormone.

So on the face of it it would seem you have to be stressed to lose weight. It would explain why people who are worried are often thin, and why fat people are jolly.

 

So the question is, and I know that this is such a simplification, is can you get "epinephrine" into your bloodstream over night without waking you up or causing nightmares.

[Nashyboyo]

this is absurd. it won't work. your understanding of how the body works is way to general. a pill would be a much better idea and their already doing research on that.