Enzymes and Vitamins
Life is Just One Big Chemical Reaction
Today on the blog I am beginning a series of discussions on the importance of vitamins in good health from the point of view of simple chemistry. Today I will discuss the concept of an enzyme.
How they are essential to life as we know it.
Enzymes, working with vitamins, are important to having a healthy life which is the whole point of this web site - giving you the information you need to sustain a healthy life.
In Every Cell
The activity of every cell in the body is only possible due to the presence of a group of chemical substances called enzymes. Their chemical activities are so complex that enzymes complete with ease processes that a chemist can reproduce only with difficulty in the science laboratory. Life consists of a series of chemical reactions which are either sped up or slowed down by the action of the enzymes.
An enzyme is a complex protein molecule capable of a chemical reaction without itself being used up or transformed. The technical name is an organic catalyst. Many commercial industries depend on the use of organic catalysts to break large molecules into simpler ones or join small ones to form large ones.
A few industries make use of enzymes, but in each case they have to grow the living organisms to produce them. The brewing industry makes use of the enzymes of yeast. Cheese manufacturers use molds and bacteria.
Enzymes have the most amazing ability to speed up a chemical reaction and yet not get involved in the process themselves.
Enzymes are so Important
Most enzymes that have been discovered and chemically classified are proteins. The important feature of enzymes that I wish to draw your attention to today is they cannot function by themselves. For all their wonderful abilities they require the presence of some other substance in order to work. Sometimes its a simple material, like calcium or magnesium ions, while others are highly complex like the vitamins we take in as part of a healthy diet.
Enzyme Action
The activity of an enzyme depends on the surface of the molecule. Being highly complex proteins, their surfaces is a very complex pattern. Every enzyme has a highly unique pattern of surface structure. Each specific pattern has its opposite mirror image on the surface of some other type of molecule that the enzyme is designed to work on -the substrate.
Some of the most important enzymatic processes in cells cannot occur unless an extra substance is present to help in splitting or linking substrates. This extra material is called a co-enzyme.
Vitamins as Co-Enzymes
One of the most important of these substances is known as co-enzyme A (CoA). The molecule of this material contains a vitamin, pantothenic acid (vitamin B5). CoA enters into many reactions within cells which result in the release of energy during the contraction of a muscle fiber.
Acting as a co-enzyme is a very common role for vitamins in the chemical reactions occurring within cells.
Vitamins and Enzymes Essential
Life is a series of chemical changes. These chemical changes are sped up by enzymes. The enzymes have a key role in promoting chemical reactions that would otherwise take way too long to happen.
The enzymes are reliant on co-enzymes to fulfill their role and vitamins are frequently the essential co-enzyme.
If the vitamin is lacking in your diet then the cell process fails and what we call disease is evident in that part of the body. Damage that we see in our body, as a consequence of vitamin deficiencies, begins at a very deep and fundamental level - inside the cell!
Very complex and life essential reactions based around enzymes are effective only with the presence of vitamins.
That peeling skin on your scalp, the ulcer on your leg and your ability to see in dim light are all due to the success or failure of a chemical process. A process that has succeeded or stalled because of the vitamins in your diet or maybe the lack of some vitamin in your diet.
Pellagra - lack of Vitamin B3.
Until next post
Eat well!
